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A month after he took voluntary retirement, 2000-batch IAS officer of Odisha cadre V K Pandian joined the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Monday. During his tenure as private secretary to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Pandian was considered the “most powerful bureaucrat” in the state. A day after taking VRS, he was appointed chairman of Nabin Odisha and Vision 5T, the state government’s flagship initiatives, with the rank of Cabinet minister.
In taking the plunge and crossing the aisle from bureaucracy as well as police to politics, Pandian followed in the footsteps of many others:
Most notable among the bureaucrat-turned-politicians remains former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an economist who taught at Panjab University in Chandigarh, and the Delhi School of Economics before joining the Union Commerce Ministry as economic adviser in 1971. The following year, he became chief advisor in the Finance Ministry and later went on to hold posts like Secretary in the Finance Ministry, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, RBI Governor and UGC Chairman.
Singh’s formal political career began in 1991, where as Finance Minister under the P V Narasimha Rao government he led economic reforms and the liberalisation of the economy. Later, he was the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from 1998 to 2004, and went on to serve as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014.
Jaswant Singh, an alumnus of the prestigious National Defence Academy, became an officer in the Army in 1957. He quit the defence forces in 1965 to enter public life. Singh, a close associate of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, was a founding member of the Jana Sangh.
He continued to remain a member of the Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha from 1980 to 2009. As Minister of External Affairs in the Vajpayee government, he developed a rapport with then US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, at a delicate time when nuclear tests – Pokharan-2 – had led to sanctions against India.
Singh also served as Defence Minister and Finance Minister under Vajpayee. He later drifted away from the BJP, and his son Manvendra Singh eventually joined the Congress and unsuccessfully contested against Vasundhara Raje in the 2018 Rajasthan elections. He is contesting in the Rajasthan Assembly elections, which got over on November 25.
Yashwant Sinha joined the IAS in 1960 and served for 24 years before quitting in 1984 to join the Janata Party, of which he became general secretary in 1986. The following year, he was made the general secretary of the Janata Dal. He joined the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government in 1990 and served as Finance Minister.
Sinha subsequently gravitated towards the BJP and was elected as an MLA in 1995, and went on to serve as the Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly.
In 1998, he contested the Lok Sabha elections and won, and was made Finance Minister in the Vajpayee government. He was re-elected in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls and stayed on as Finance Minister till 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he served as the Minister of External Affairs.
He later resigned from the BJP and was the Opposition’s presidential nominee in 2022.
Natwar Singh joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1953 and served for 31 years before resigning and joining the Congress in 1984, when he won the Lok Sabha elections from Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
The following year, he was sworn in as a Minister of State and in 2004, he became Minister of External Affairs in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet. In 2006, he resigned as minister in the wake of the “oil-for-food scandal” and quit the Congress. He subsequently joined the BSP, from which he was expelled within four months.
In 1963, Mani Shankar Aiyar joined the IFS and went on to serve as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs from 1982 to 1983. He also served as Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) between 1985 and 1989.
He quit the IFS in 1989 and joined the Congress. In the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, he was elected as MP from Mayiladuthurai in Tamil Nadu, a seat he went on to win multiple times. Between 2010 and 2016, he served as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
In the Congress-led UPA-1 government, Aiyar held the Petroleum and Panchayati Raj portfolios. Currently, he is a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC).
Jaishankar joined the IFS in 1977 and went on to serve as Foreign Secretary of India between 2015 and 2018.
Post-retirement, he joined Tata and Sons as President (Global Corporate Affairs) and made a surprise entry as Minister of External Affairs into the Narendra Modi Cabinet in 2019. He later formally joined the BJP and was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat.
A 1974-batch IFS officer, Puri retired from service in February 2013 and joined the International Peace Institute, New York.
In January 2014, he joined the BJP and was inducted into the Modi Cabinet as Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs in 2018, following M Venkaiah Naidu’s elevation as Vice-President. He became a member of the Rajya Sabha from UP in 2018 and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 from Amritsar. Currently, he is the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
The incumbent Railways Minister had a very unusual trajectory from IAS to politics. A 1994-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre, Vaishnaw proceeded on study leave to the US in 2008 while serving at Murumgao Port in Goa.
He returned only to resign and join the corporate sector. Following stints in General Electric and Siemens, and incorporating his own firms in Gujarat, Vaishnaw was declared as joint candidate for Rajya Sabha by the BJP and BJD in 2019.
Chief of Army Staff from 2010 to 2012, V K Singh had a turbulent relation with the Manmohan Singh government over his retirement date due to a dispute over his date of birth.
Soon after retirement, he supported the anti-corruption movements of Anna Hazare and yoga guru Ramdev. He joined the BJP in March 2014 and won the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat by a margin of more than 5 lakh votes. Singh became Minister of State for External Affairs in the Narendra Modi government and is currently Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways.
The 2004 Olympic medal-winning shooter and Kargil war veteran served the Army from 1990 to 2013, after which he opted for retirement and joined the BJP.
He was elected as an MP from Jaipur (Rural) in 2014, and served as Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, and also Union Sports Minister, in the Modi government.
He was fielded by the BJP from Jhotwara seat in the recently-concluded Rajasthan Assembly elections.
A 2011-batch IPS officer of Karnataka cadre, Annamalai quit the police force in 2019 while he was serving as Deputy Commissioner of Police (Bengaluru South). The following year, he joined the BJP, which in 2021 elevated him as the chief of its Tamil Nadu unit.
Alphons was recruited into the IAS in 1979 and served for 27 years before he chose to resign from the service in 2006 to enter politics.
He was later elected as MLA from Kanjirappally in Kottayam district of Kerala as an Independent with the backing of the Left Democratic Front (LDF).
In March 2011, Alphons joined the BJP in the presence of then party president Nitin Gadkari, hours after quitting as MLA. He was later appointed Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Minister of State (independent charge) for Tourism. He unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Ernakulam.
A 1980-batch IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre, Satyapal Singh opted for voluntary retirement months ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, while serving as the Mumbai Police Commissioner.
His application was immediately accepted by the state government, making Singh the only Mumbai Police Commissioner to resign from his post to join politics.
Three months later, Singh contested from Baghpat in western UP (his home state) on a BJP ticket and won. Between 2017 and 2019, Singh was Minister of State for HRD and Minister of State for Water Resources in the Modi government. He won a second term as MP in 2019 polls.
A 1988-batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre, Sharma, who hails from UP, took VRS in January 2021 with 18 months before his superannuation date.
Soon after, he joined the BJP and was elected to the UP Legislative Council. Known to be close to PM Narendra Modi, he spent considerable time in the PMO. He is currently Minister of Energy and Urban Development in the Yogi Adityanath government.
A 1994-batch IAS officer of Odisha cadre, Sarangi opted for VRS and joined the BJP in November 2018 to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which she won as a BJP candidate from Bhubaneswar. Pror to her resignation, Sarangi had served as Joint Secretary in the Union Rural Development Ministry. She is currently the national spokesperson of the BJP.
A 1969-batch IPS officer of the Rajasthan cadre, Meena retired from service in 2003 and was appointed a member of the State Human Rights Commission.
In 2004, he joined the Congress and contested the Lok Sabha polls from Sawai Madhopur, defeating sitting MP and Union minister Jaskaur Meena by a margin of over 1 lakh votes.
He was appointed as Minister of State for Environment and Forests in the Manmohan Singh government. He won the Sawai Madhopur seat again in 2009 and became a minister, but lost in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
A 1994-batch IPS officer of UP cadre, Asim Arun resigned from service in January 2022, hours after elections were announced in the state. He was then Commissioner of Kanpur city.
A week later, he joined the BJP, which fielded him from Kannauj, considered a Samajwadi Party bastion. Arun, who hails from UP, won the seat and was made Minister of State (independent charge) in the Yogi Adityanath government. He continues to hold the post.
A 2005-batch IAS officer of Chhattisgarh cadre and then Raipur collector, Chaudhary resigned from service just ahead of Assembly elections in 2018.
He went on to join the BJP, which fielded him from the Kharasia Assembly constituency. He, however, lost to the Congress’s Umesh Patel by a huge margin. The BJP fielded him in the recently-concluded Assembly election, but from Raigarh constituency.
Following the footsteps of Chaudhary, Tekam, a state-cadre officer who was elevated to the IAS in 2008, applied for VRS in May and joined the BJP in August after his application was accepted. He was serving as the Director of Treasury and Accounts.
He was fielded by the BJP from Keshkal constituency in Kondagaon in the Assembly polls. Hailing from Kanker district of the state, Tekam has served in the Bastar region of the state.
The 1997-batch UP cadre IPS officer, who joined the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2007 and probed several high-profile cases such as the 2G spectrum allocation and Aircel-Maxis deal, resigned from service in January 2022, months ahead of UP Assembly polls. He then joined the BJP and was elected as MLA from Lukcnow’s Sarojini Nagar constituency.
The 1998-batch Haryana cadre officer sought VRS just a month before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and was granted the same by the Centre after relaxation of rules.
He then joined the BJP and was fielded from Hisar, and won. Singh comes from a political family. His father Birender Singh was a former Union minister in the Narendra Modi government.
A 1975-batch IAS officer of the Bihar cadre, Singh served as Home Secretary before he retired from service in June 2013. In less than six months, Singh joined the BJP and was fielded by the party in the Lok Sabha polls from Arrah in Bihar. Singh won the seat comfortably.
Following his second victory in 2019, Singh was made a minister in the Modi cabinet. He is currently Minister of Power.
A 1977-batch IPS officer of the UP cadre, Brij Lal served as UP DGP in the Mayawati regime between 2011 and 2012. Prior to this, he had held key positions such as ADG (law & order) and crime, Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and Special Task Force (STF).
Lal retired in November 2014 and joined the BJP in January 2015. In 2018 he was made the head of the UP Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission. He is currently a Rajya Sabha member from UP and heads the Parliamentary Committee studying the Bills to amend the IPC and CrPC.
