Pratap Chandra Sarangi, 64, the latest entrant to Lutyens’ political club could have never imagined that the picture of him coming out of his thatched house in Balasore would go viral by the time he reached New Delhi Thursday to take oath as a minister in PM Narendra Modi’s cabinet.
A first-time Member of Parliament from Odisha, who got inducted in Modi cabinet as junior minister for animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries, Sarangi’s austere lifestyle has endeared him to the masses and the intelligentsia alike. One can’t blame the mainstream media’s obsession with him. In today’s day and time, his frugal lifestyle stands out in the power corridors of Delhi.
His colleagues in the state say Sarangi’s long association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP’s ideological font, could have had a role in influencing his austere lifestyle.
Sarangi’s oath-taking Thursday at the Rashtrapati Bhawan forecourt got the maximum applause from not only his party colleagues but the audience as well. The trust reposed by Modi in Sarangi, who defeated former Balasore MP R.K. Jena (BJD) with over 12,000 votes, is evident from the fact that of the eight BJP MPs who won from Odisha, he was the only one to be inducted in the cabinet.
Even Jual Oram, who won from the Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat for the second time and was the tribal affairs minister in Modi’s previous cabinet, was dropped this time.
In fact, Sarangi, a bachelor, was not too keen to contest the Lok Sabha elections this time as he had lost to Jena in the Balasore seat in 2014. Sarangi was more interested in an MLA ticket for 2019 but the BJP did not relent.
Also read: Pratap Sarangi — the new entrant in Modi govt who stands out for his simplicity
Sarangi’s brush with controversy
Sarangi is not only an old RSS hand but he was also associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal. He was a Bajrang Dal leader when one of its activists, Dara Singh, burnt alive Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons in 1999 in Keonjhar’s Manoharpur village.
In 2002, Sarangi and 66 others from the Bajrang Dal were arrested after an attack on the Odisha Assembly. The group, which vandalised the Assembly, demanded that the disputed land in Ayodhya be handed over to build a Ram temple.
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Sidelined earlier, rewarded now
Sarangi’s elevation to the cabinet could be his reward for keeping a low profile and silently working on the ground to strengthen the BJP’s footprints in the state. He is one of the handful of BJP workers who was involved in setting up the party in Odisha.
PM Narendra Modi had, in 2017, called him the BJP’s oldest sainik in Odisha.
He had represented the BJP twice in the Odisha assembly in 2004 and 2009. That Modi has a soft corner for Sarangi is evident from the fact that when the PM was visiting the state in 2017, he stopped at the airport to shake hands with him.
However, Sarangi, not known to be close to Dharmendra Pradhan, was sidelined when the latter was given the responsibility to prepare the party’s strategy in the state for the 2019 elections. He wanted to become the BJP Odisha chief, but lost out to Basant Panda.
Also read: BJP gets a solid foothold in Odisha but Naveen Patnaik retains state
A spiritual bend
Sarangi’s colleagues vouch for his honesty and say he had been spiritually inclined since his young days. There was a time he wanted to join the Ramakrishna Mission, but was dissuaded by the monks there and told to go back to his village and look after his mother. Sarangi later told interviewers that although he is compared to a monk, he is not one – and that he is a politician. He just believes in living an austere life.
Before joining politics, Sarangi was a clerk in Nilagiri college in Balasore. He resigned when he decided to enter politics in 2004. To date, Sarangi gives his pension to the poor in his constituency. During the 2019 campaign, too, Sarangi was the only BJP candidate to campaign on a cycle and autorickshaw.