Days after resigning from Indian Administrative Service (IAS), OP Choudhary, the 2005 batch IAS officer formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (Party) at the BJP’s national headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday.
He took the party’s membership in presence of BJP’s national president Amit Shah where Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh was especially present.
“I have assumed the membership of BJP,” said Choudhary, who tweeted a photo of him with Shah
and Raman Singh after joining the party. The former bureaucrat releasing a video on his Facebook post also claimed that he served the people of Chhattisgarh for 13 long years in the capacity of District Collector in various districts. “I did everything to help people in the districts but now I was supposed to be deployed at the Mantralaya and from there, it would have been difficult to do what I want to do for the people of the State”, he said explaining the reason behind his decision to quit IAS and join politics.
“I am very satisfied with my tenure in the IAS. But bureaucracy has its own limitations. I want to work more for my people and my soil, that is why I decided to leave the service,” he claimed.
Choudhary, in the IAS was allotted his home state as his cadre. His resignation was accepted immediately by the Department of Personnel and Training. Choudhary, who is credited for bringing transformation in education sector in Chhattisgarh’s Naxal-affected Dantewada district, is likely to contest the upcoming assembly polls from Kharasia constituency, a Congress bastion in Raigarh district.
At present, State Youth Congress President Umesh Patel is a sitting Congress MlA from Kharasia.
Choudhary belongs to Patel’s Aghariya community, a dominant OBC community in Raigarh. The former IAS officer had an exemplary track record while working in the capacity of District Collector and was given the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration for the year 2011-12 for his contribution in development of Naxal-affected areas through education.