Politics runs in family for this IT entrepreneur

Hailing from Bihar, Shweta Shalini completed her school education from nine schools across seven states as her father worked with the Indian Army. She graduated as an engineer from Pune, did her MBA from Pune and then worked with sales and marketing team of a company in Pimpri-Chinchwad belt of Pune for over seven years. Later, she started her own IT company, which now employs over 3,500 professionals.

Shalini is now a BJP state unit spokesperson but is equally active in deploying her domain knowledge of IT in to all her activities aimed at bringing BJP to power in 2019. "My father, Shishir Kumar, was treasurer of the JP (Jaiprakash Narayan) movement, which galvanised people across India against emergency in 1975. JP had told my father to do away with a surname. Since then, we don't use a surname," she tells DNA.

Shweta's husband hails from a family in Ayodhya, which is connected to RSS and is in-charge of Dashrath Mandir situated adjacent to Ramlala at Ayodhya. Shweta said that when she joined Atlas Copco, a company in PCMC area in Pune, she was the first woman in the firm's sales and marketing team.

She said that after starting her own IT company in 2007, she got involved with developing IT products, using them to analyse the pulse of people and explore what is happening in India in the given field. It was during the development of such IT products that Shweta first met the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. In those days, due to advent of technology, Facebook, a social networking website, was emerging as a big player, replacing Orkut. It was Modi, who was first among few politicians, to operate a Facebook and a YouTube account.

Shweta says she was working with the strategy division, created by Modi, which was in Ahmedabad and her only aim was to get an opportunity to study the entire country by joining that team.

After working with Modi's team, she first met Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis in 2011 and subsequently after Fadnavis was made state unit president of BJP, he got Shalini involved with social media- and technology-driven team, which brought BJP to power. Shalini says, "Fadnavis wanted to replicate what Narendrabhai did in Ahmedabad and that is the reason I worked with his team here. It was deploying a technology for election management and Fadnavis harnessed it to the fullest."

Shweta recalls, "Fadnavis is one of those leaders who adopts all kinds of changes in technology and uses all technology platforms in addition to ably communicating with rural and urban masses as well as professionals." She says that the IT team had developed a platform titled 'Ask Fadnavis' for Fadnavis, who replied to at least 1,500 questions every day. Shalini says, "At times, it used to become difficult for him to write and post every reply so he used to send a recorded voice message and our IT team would then convert it in to a text message. Shalini says that Fadnavis had asked the IT team to develop a 'Vision Maharashtra' website, which unveiled various initiatives for development in all corners of the state.

Shalini is now working as an executive director of Village Social Transformation of India (VSTI), which is engaged in transforming rural Maharashtra with the help from corporate houses, non-profit organisations and professionals. The CSR fund (Corporate Social Responsibility) of corporate houses, along with work from social organisations and experts from various fields are involved in transforming 1,000 villages in the state in the beginning.

Shalini has been made BJP state unit spokesperson, and in addition to her work for VSTI and state unit, she is also deploying her domain knowledge of engineering as well as MBA with the aim of bringing the party to power again in 2019.