Former senior Odisha-cadre IAS officer Aparajita Sarangi formally joined the BJP on Tuesday at a meeting held at the residence of party national president Amit Shah in New Delhi.
Many senior leaders including Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Odisha BJP president Basant Panda and State party in-charge Arun Singh were also present.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician is expected to return to Bhubaneswar on Wednesday and would be welcomed at the party State headquarters.
Speaking at a Press conference after joining the party, Sarangi said she chose to enter politics after voluntarily retiring from service, 11 years ahead of schedule, as she considers that politics would offer her a huge medium to serve the people.
“While in service we work in a limited environment and are fixed to certain boundaries while in politics there is a huge platform. During my Central deputation in the last five years, I got the opportunity to witness Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determination for speedy development and hard work which has influenced me a lot; so, I decided to join the party,” Sarangi said.
Sarangi, a 1994-batch IAS officer and wife of another Odisha-cadre IAS officer Santosh Sarangi (now on Central deputation), was on Central deputation since 2013. She was supposed to return to Odisha in October this year. However, she applied for VRS in September 2018 and was relieved from service earlier this month.
Sarangi’s application for VRS was approved by PM Modi on November 16. During her tenure in Odisha, Sarangi had become a popular bureaucrat as the Secretary of School and Mass Education Department and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner.