Raipur: Raipur district collector O.P. Choudhary, who has been credited with transforming education in Naxal-infested Bastar in Chhattisgarh, has resigned from his service to “serve the people” of the state.
He is set to join ruling BJP and may be projected as an OBC face of the party in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, scheduled to held by end of the year.
The 2005 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer’s resignation was accepted by the Centre on Saturday, an official spokesman of Chhattisgarh government told this newspaper.
“Life has provided me with many challenging opportunities ever since I joined the civil service 13 years ago. I now want to serve my state and my people. Hence, I am resigning from IAS,” he tweeted.
“We have yet to hear from the Central leadership regarding Mr Choudhury’s induction in the party,” a BJP spokesman here told this newspaper.
Sources said Mr Choudhary was supposed to join BJP during party president Amit Shah’s visit to Chhattisgarh on August 22, which was cancelled following the death of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajapyee.
Mr Choudhary, according to sources, may be fielded in Kharasia Assembly constituency to pose a challenge to sitting Congress MLA Umesh Patel, son of former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Nand Kumar Patel who was among 27 Congress leaders massacred in a Naxal attack in Jiram Ghati in Bastar in 2013.
He may also be fielded in the 2019 parliamentary elections.Mr Choudhary, son a schoolteacher, had cracked the civil service examination at the age of 22 in the first attempt.
He would be the second IAS officer of Chhattisgarh after former chief minister Ajit Jogi to take the plunge into politics after demitting the coveted office.
Mr Choudhary shot into the national limelight half a decade ago when he conceived and executed the education hub at Naxal-infested Dantewada in south Chhattisgarh to provide education to tribal children particularly the wards of victims of Naxal violence in the conflict zone.
