New Delhi: After the saffron party’s resounding victory in Odisha in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accommodated three BJP leaders from Odisha in his Cabinet.
With Odisha one of the brightest spots in BJP’s Lok Sabha election showing, the party appointed its popular tribal face from the state and six-time Sundargarh MP Jual Oram, Sambalpur MP Dharmendra Pradhan, and the party’s Rajya Sabha MP from the state Ashwini Vaishnaw to the Union Council of Ministers.
Dharmendra Pradhan
Pradhan 54, has served as a Union Minister in Modi’s two previous terms, handling key portfolios such as petroleum and natural gas, education and skill development, and is considered a prominent face of the BJP in Odisha.
Pradhan is credited for the successful implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana during his tenure as the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The son of former Union Minister Debendra Pradhan, Dharmendra is known to share close ties with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Pradhan, who has a Master’s degree in anthropology from the Utkal University in Bhubaneswar, Pradhan started his political career as an Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activist in 1983.
Hailing from Talcher in Angul district, Pradhan was first elected to the state Assembly in 2000 from the Pallahara assembly seat and moved on to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from the erstwhile Deogarh parliamentary constituency. In 2019, when the BJP contested the Assembly polls on its own in Odisha after the alliance with the BJD ended, Pradhan unsuccessfully contested from Pallahara again. He was subsequently nominated twice to the Rajya Sabha.
Pradhan has also worked as the BJP’s election in-charge in Bihar and as the in-charge of party affairs in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, and Odisha. Returning to direct electoral politics in Odisha in 2024 after 15 years, Pradhan defeated BJD’s organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das, the number three in the party, by 1.19 lakh votes.
Ashwini Vaishnaw
The former IAS officer-turned-entrepreneur began his political career in June 2018, when he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Odisha as a BJP nominee despite the party not having the required numbers in the state Assembly. The BJD left the seat for Vaishnaw following PM Narendra Modi’s last-minute call to Naveen Patnaik. He was appointed Union Railway Minister three years later.
A native of Jodhpur, Vaishnaw, a qualified engineer from IIT Kanpur, was a 1994-batch IAS officer and served as the Collector of Balasore and Cuttack. He came to the government’s notice as a young bureaucrat (then posted as Balasore collector) when he tracked the path of the 1999 Super Cyclone from the US Navy’s website and regularly updated the Odisha government. More than 10,000 people perished in the calamity.
After his initial days in Odisha, Vaishnaw was moved to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in 2003 and posted as deputy secretary. He also served as the private secretary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee after the BJP lost the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. He was appointed as deputy chairman of the Mormugao Port Authority in 2006.
After quitting the IAS, Vaishnaw set up two automotive components manufacturing units in Gujarat during which he is believed to have drawn the attention of Modi, then the Gujarat CM. Vaishnaw was renominated unopposed to the Rajya Sabha again in February when the BJD extended its support.
Jual Oram
Oram, 63, served as the Union Cabinet Minister twice in the past. In his second term as an MP in 1999, Oram was assigned to head the tribal affairs ministry after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government set up the ministry following the bifurcation of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. He was re-inducted again in 2014 when Narendra Modi assumed power for the first time and again got the tribal affairs portfolio.
In the just-concluded elections, Oram defeated hockey icon and BJD candidate Dilip Tirkey from his traditional base Sundargarh by more than 1.38 lakh votes. Oram, who won the seat five times between 1998 and 2019, made an emotional pitch during the campaign, seeking votes in what he billed as his “last election”.
The decision to include Oram in the Union Cabinet is also seen as the BJP’s attempt to further strengthen its base among the tribals in Odisha, who comprise around 23% of the population. Oram is also known as a strong critic of outgoing CM Naveen Patnaik.
Born into a poor tribal family in Kendudihi village in Sundargarh district, Oram completed his engineering degree in 1982 and worked in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited before entering politics. Oram was elected to the state Assembly first in 1990 from the Bonai Assembly seat and again re-elected in 1995.
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