It has been a marked shift for Santrupt Misra, who took voluntary retirement from his high-flying corporate job to embark on a political career.
The business attire of suit and boots has been replaced with kurta, pyjama, sleeveless jacket, and chappal. He is no longer surrounded by business executives, board members, and consultants. Instead, political activists and those aspiring to gain from his political journey have descended at his residence in Cuttack, far away from his cosy home in Mumbai.
Mr. Misra, 58, joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the ruling party in Odisha, earlier this year “to serve the people of my home State”. He is the BJD candidate for the Cuttack Lok Sabha constituency, which goes to the polls on May 25.
Mr. Misra, who grew up in Odisha, was the CEO, Birla Carbon; Director, Chemicals; and Director, Group Human Resources for the Aditya Birla Group.
A close confidant of chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, Mr. Misra declared assets worth ₹461 crore in his nomination affidavit. His annual income in the financial year 2022-2023 stood at over ₹66 crore.
Mr. Mishra told The Hindu that he could have continued earning for himself but he was confronted with several questions on the purpose of life and what would provide him utmost satisfaction.
“I wanted to make a larger contribution beyond being confined to a single organisation, to work with more diverse sections of people who are very different from what I saw in the corporate world,” he said.
“I also felt that in my home State I could apply my decades of corporate learning in diversity to kind of make a big difference in the people’s life,” he said.
On why he chose the BJD, Mr. Misra said, “For three reasons. Naveen Patnaik, the leader of the party, is person of change. He remains non-partisan and focused on development. He also remains focused on the practice of a kind of civilised gentleman,” he said.
“Second was the fact that the BJD, which is a regional party, was focused on the State only and was not kind of getting into other things other than development of the people in the State. Other national parties were focused on the other States. That was different.”
“And finally, I found that Biju Janata Dal was very focused on development of people and the development of politics of people. So these were three reasons,” he added.
Mr. Misra wants to use his experience in problem-solving, resource utilisation, resource mobilisation, teamwork, conflict resolution, visioning and long-term planning for the development of the State. “Each one of them have an application somewhere at the end. And I have only experienced some of it that I am using it.
“So therefore, I see that there is a great amount of transformation that is possible from corporate life to public life,” he said.
Contesting from Cuttack was the party’s decision but Mr. Misra is happy. “Cuttack is very old [over 1,000 years old]. It has lot of rich culture and heritage. Even Subhash Chandra Bose was born here. This is the city where I grew up. My work of my 20s in school and college education where everything I know, I learnt. I could get an opportunity [to represent] that was a great thing for me,” he added.
Mr. Misra faces Bhartruhari Mahtab of the BJP. A six-time MP, Mr. Mahtab was earlier with the BJD.
“As regards the competition, candidates from the Opposition, I don’t think I pay much attention to that, because my job is to carry my party’s performance, my party’s message, of the leadership, my personal message to people, and I believe all these messages are so strong, and their combined effect is so strong that it will be very appealing to the voters,” he said.
“And I am sure voters will ask the candidates and parties of their performance in the past years. They have seen the performance of BJD,” he added.
For over a month Mr. Misra has been extensively travelling in his constituency in intense heat. “People are extending a very warm welcome. They are curious to know more about me,” he said.
“They are happy to meet me. They openly share their feelings and thoughts with me. They share what opportunities we have to improve and develop the constituency, and I think, of course, they want to know my vision and everything, and it’s been a very productive conversation and engagement with all of them,” he added.
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