Jose Charles Martin does not believe politics is the highest form of power. He says it plainly, almost casually, like a businessman stating a balance sheet truth. “Businessmen have more power than politicians, actually.”
And yet, here he is: the 37-year-old founder of the Latchiya Jananayaga Katchi (LJK) is contesting his first election from Puducherry, and speaking of ministries, urban transformation, and governance roadmaps that stretch to 2050. If there is a contradiction, he does not seem troubled by it.
“I have seen money, I have seen power,” he says. “Now it is about giving back.”
It is an argument that sits at the heart of a family that now finds itself — unusually and strategically — distributed across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry’s political map. His mother Leema Rose Martin recently left the Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK) after 14 years, citing neglect and lack of respect, and has joined the AIADMK, where she is contesting from Lalgudi in Tiruchirappalli district.
His brother-in-law, Aadhav Arjuna — once a gym trainer who fell in love and married Jose Charles’ sister, and thereafter rose rapidly through the business and political circuits — is now a key functionary in actor Vijay’s party TVK and is contesting from Villivakkam in Chennai. Jose Charles himself is in Puducherry, aligned with the BJP-backed alliance.
Three family members, three parties, and two territories. “All five fingers are not the same,” says Jose Charles. “Everybody has different ideologies, visions and ambitions.”
A vision and a market
His own entry into politics, Jose Charles says, began not with ideology but with exposure: to disaster, and then to possibility. He says he first came to Puducherry during Cyclone Fengal in 2024. The destruction moved him, he says; so did the poverty. His group, he says, contributed nearly Rs 10 crore in flood relief. What began as corporate charity turned, in his telling, into a political awakening.
“There is a gap here,” he says, explaining why he launched his party in Puducherry. “Tamil Nadu is already saturated with strong parties. Here, I can show results faster.” It is a familiar corporate instinct: choose the smaller market, scale up quickly, demonstrate results.
His pitch for Puducherry is part development plan, part investor brochure. He speaks of turning it into “Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong,” attracting foreign investors, building residential ecosystems, fixing drainage, eliminating mosquito-borne problems, and designing a long-term urban roadmap with help from Singapore-based consultants who have studied the region.
Jose Charles is most comfortable when he speaks of business. “We have 15 industries,” he says, listing education, hospitality, micro-finance, energy, farming, infrastructure, construction, and more. “Our turnover is around Rs 24,000 crore. GST contribution is around Rs 5,000 crore a year. Income tax is Rs 300 crore.”
Then comes the central point. “When we are contributing so much to society, why can’t we transform things?” It is both a question and a thesis. His model of politics is not ideological but managerial. He says he will “push for a ministry”, maybe Tourism, because “just being an MLA will not help”.
Politics, he notes with unusual candour, is “a costly affair”. “An MLA has around Rs 2 crore,” he says of constituency funds. “We have a Rs 20 crore CSR budget. I can put Rs 10 crore per year. That is Rs 50 crore in five years.” With Rs 50 crore in one town, he says, “you can see wonderful growth”. His language isn’t about redistribution but of capital allocation.
The family faultline
The conversation turns personal and sharper when it reaches Aadhav Arjuna, his brother-in-law. “He is a problem,” Jose Charles says, amid Aadhav’s remarks that have triggered speculations about a tussle with the family.
“He had a vision to become rich by marrying someone rather than through hard work,” he says, accusing Aadhav of entering the family “to disturb it” and trying to “take over the business”, and running “aggressive politics, creating a big mess”.
“We have settled him now,” he says, suggesting a family intervention. “He has an agenda.” The criticism is striking not just for its bluntness but for its timing. This is perhaps the first time a member of the Martin family has publicly spoken against Aadhav who has built a reputation as an ambitious, high-energy operator whose political shifts — from the DMK to the VCK to the TVK — have often been as rapid as they are disruptive. Jose Charles draws a contrast. “He is desperate for power,” Jose Charles says. “We have seen money, we have seen power. But his approach is different.”
Jose Charles, by contrast, presents himself as the calmer heir: the man who saw the cyclone, read the balance sheet, liked the Prime Minister’s vision, and concluded that Puducherry was manageable.
‘Businessmen have more power’
At his Reddiarpalayam residence-cum-office in Puducherry town, the driveway lined with several luxury vehicles speaks, perhaps more clearly than words, of the world he comes from. Asked why he entered politics at all if business already provides influence, he does not retreat. “Businessmen have more power than politicians,” he says, asserting that there is no need for businessmen in India to enter politics to grab something. Politics, then, is not about acquiring power, but perhaps about legitimising it.
Or, is it about protecting and expanding it? He repeats that one need not enter politics for that.
For years, Santiago Martin, Jose Charles’s father, has been one of India’s most politically connected businessmen. His company, Future Gaming and Hotel Services, purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore between 2019 and 2024, making it the single-largest donor in the scheme. His businesses, centred on lottery operations, have also drawn scrutiny from enforcement agencies, including money-laundering investigations and asset attachments. It is widely believed that the Martin family’s political proximity helps protect and possibly widen business interests, especially around sectors as regulated and controversial as lottery operations. In Kerala, the late Communist leader and CM V S Achuthanandan made Santiago Martin one of his most persistent targets, casting him as a symbol of the nexus between private fortune and political indulgence. The casino question, too, hovers quietly in the background.
With someone from the family in different parties, if one door closes, another may already be open. Jose Charles prefers another framing. “I like doing this,” he says. “Then it is not a headache.” Politics, he suggests, is like going to the gym. Painful, perhaps, but chosen. And if it works, like a well-run enterprise.
Jose Charles returns to his ideas about development, environment and “holistic growth.” “My ideology is growth and development. People have to live happily,” he says. His political inspirations are not Gandhi or Marx or Periyar, but A P J Abdul Kalam. His faith is “universal”. “I like Hinduism, Christianity… all religions preach karma.” It is a worldview that avoids conflict, even as his political positioning enters one.
Puducherry, if he has his way, will be the pilot project.
