Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the twin elections in Odisha, corporate honcho Santrupt Misra joined Biju Janata Dal (BJD) at Naveen Niwas here on Friday.
There has been buzz about Misra ever since he took early retirement from Aditya Birla Group, the conglomerate where he worked for more than 27 years, on December 28.
Welcoming him to the party, Naveen said: “He left an important corporate job to help us in our good work. We will decide..what position he will stand..”.
5t Chairman V K Pandian and other senior party leaders, including Pranab Prakash Das, Pratap Deb and Snehangini Chhuria, were present.
Speaking to the media later, Misra said that he would take up any work assigned to him by the BJD leadership and abide by party discipline. He further said that he decided to join BJD after being inspired by the ideology, personality and people-oriented work of party president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. “I was truly inspired by the manner in which CM Naveen Patnaik has taken the state forward to new heights in growth and has been ruling for last 25 years on the basis of fundamental principles and by bringing spiritualism in the administration,” he said.
He further that he will work for the people of Odisha and strengthen the party with support of other senior party leaders. “After working many years outside the country, I had wished to return to Odisha and serve people here,” he added.
A native of Puri, Misra was the Global Director of Human Resources as well as Group Director of Birla Carbon and Director of Chemicals.
According to reports, he was instrumental in shaping employee policies in the Aditya Birla Group and had also mentored the next generation of Birla scions—Aryaman Vikram Birla and Ananya Birla. It is said that Kumar Birla relied on Misra, who joined the Aditya Birla Group in 1996 as vice president of HR from Hindustan Unilever (HUL).
Misra has worked at the board level for over two decades as a Non-Executive Director and Executive Director in publicly listed companies, unlisted companies, and not-for-profit organisations in India and overseas. He is a director in several companies of the Aditya Birla Group including Aditya Birla Capital Ltd., Grasim, and Birla Carbon Thailand, which are listed companies.
Misra’s Linkedin profile reveals that he did his masters in Politics and also PhD in Public Administration from Utkal University in Bhubaneswar.
(With inputs from Money Control & The Mint)
