Music composer A.R. Rahman, who won 2 Oscars for his score in Slumdog Millionaire, was voted the Indian of the Year 2009 in an online poll conducted by www.indiatoday.in.Rahman got 27 per cent of the votes polled by visitors to the website. The Mozart of Madras was followed at some distance by Congress general secretary and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi at 17.42 per cent (also the highest ranking politician) and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar at 16.67 per cent.The top performing industrialist was Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata who got 12.5 per cent of the votes. Among other politicians, former Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who died in a helicopter crash in September, scored 8.7 per cent of the votes followed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at 7.9 per cent, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at 4.2 per cent and BJP parliamentary party chairman L.K. Advani at 2.7 per cent.The only nominee not to get even a solitary vote was former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda, who has been charged with massive corruption during his tenure.The other contenders were Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, item girl-turned-TV star Rakhi Sawant, killer opener Virender Sehwag, Unique ID card project chief Nandan Nilekani, badminton player Saina Nehwal, film actor Amitabh Bachchan and Team India skipper M.S. Dhon http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/77137/India/Rahman+voted+Indian+of+the+Year+2009.html
