New Delhi: A career in the civil services has long been seen as one of the most sought-after paths in public life. In recent years, another trend has become difficult to miss. Officers who spent years in the government are leaving administrative careers and entering electoral politics.
Generals, police officers and administrators
Former Central Bureau of Investigation Director M Nageshwar Rao has taken a different route. He took charge as the national president of the Sarvajana Sanatan Party and begun his political journey from Kashi. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is among the most prominent examples. He also handles the Information and Broadcasting and Electronics and Information Technology portfolios. General VK Singh brought a military career into electoral politics. He later served as minister of state for external affairs and held other ministerial responsibilities in the Union government. He entered politics after serving as an IAS officer in Bihar and at the Centre. He later served as the Union finance minister and external affairs minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Ex-IFS officer Hardeep Singh Puri joined the BJP after a long diplomatic career and later became a Union cabinet minister. He had served as Raipur collector and is now a minister in the Chhattisgarh government. He is the Chhattisgarh finance minister.
A 1977-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, he served as foreign secretary from 2015 to 2018 after diplomatic postings in several countries. He joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019 and became external affairs minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second government. Vaishnaw became Union Railway Minister in 2021. He served as chief of the Army staff before joining the BJP in 2014 and winning the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat. He resigned from the service in 1984 and joined the Janata Party. The list also includes former IAS officer O P Choudhary, who resigned from the service in 2018 and joined the BJP.
He said that his administrative experience in security, law and order and governance would inform his work in politics.
The government lists his earlier administrative experience as part of his professional background.
