Bhubaneshwar: When Santrupt Misra, the 59-year-old group director of human resources in the Aditya Birla group, quit his high-profile job in February to join Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and contest the Lok Sabha polls from Cuttack, it surprised many of his family and friends.
He takes on sitting MP from Cuttack and former BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahtab, who left the party last month and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Until he quit, Misra had spent nearly 30 years as a high-flying corporate executive in various leadership roles in the Aditya Birla group, which he had joined at 28. He rose through the ranks to hold various leadership positions in the company, including group director of Birla Carbon and director of Birla Chemicals. He also served on the board of ONGC as an independent director.
One would think that leaving the lure of the corporate world at 59 and taking a plunge into the uncertainty of politics is a difficult decision for him.
However, according to Misra, he left after it dawned on him that he could make that choice. “My children were settled… I had discharged my duty to my family. I could now afford to make the choice of coming back to Odisha and serving people,” he told ThePrint at his house in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar.
Politics always interested him, having had several family members involved in India’s Independence movement. Even until recently, several of his family are involved in politics — his father was a former student union president, his uncle was the ex-chairman of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation and several of his cousins have been active in politics, he said.
“Politics has been in my blood since my childhood,” Misra said, adding: “I wanted to contribute to the development of Odisha and when this opportunity came, I didn’t think twice.”
Misra joined the BJD in February this year and was appointed one of the party’s national spokespersons before his candidature from Cuttack was announced.
Though a political greenhorn, Misra is familiar with the state’s power corridors. In 2021, the BJD government appointed him the chairman of the advisory committee of the Ekamra Kshetra heritage project to beautify the areas surrounding the 11th-century Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneshwar.
His wife Alka Misra, an Indian Railway Personnel Service officer, was also appointed the chairperson of Odisha Skill Development Authority in 2022.
In government corridors, they are referred to as the Odia power couple whom Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik roped in to head key programmes of his government.
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‘Campaigning in 44°C is like baptism by fire’
But he admits the grueling campaigning schedule under a blazing sun is tough.
“If you had come to my campaign two days ago, you would have seen 44° Celsius temperature, four hours in a local jeep, blazing sun above… I am going through baptism by fire.”
His coping mantra — stay hydrated and keep smiling. “I follow the basics prescribed by my daughter, a doctor in London, and keep myself hydrated. I listen to my cameraman friend who often tells me to keep smiling.”
He’s also learning his lessons swiftly and proving his critics wrong. “People visibly see that I can sit for two hours on the floor in party meetings. I can go in an open jeep at the blazing 44-degree temperature for four hours and consecutively for two days and yet I’m able to smile.”
Misra says he chose the BJD over national parties like BJP “because of the personality and brand of politics that BJD chief and CM Naveen Patnaik represents – a very civil, very mature, leadership, which is balanced, which is not rabble-rousing, which is not unnecessarily critical, negative”.
“That brand of politics, that value system had tremendous attraction for me,” Misra said.
He was also inspired by the welfare programmes of the Naveen Patnaik government.
“From cradle to the grave, he identified every segment of the population and targeted them through one or the other government schemes. There is a perfect doorstep delivery, continuous monitoring of the program, feedback, senior leaders are expected to go out to the public, redress grievances… this responsive government, forward-looking and future looking governance has been a great source of inspiration,” he added.
He has a formidable opponent in Mahtab, a six-time MP from the Cuttack Lok Sabha seat. But that doesn’t daunt him. “My freshness, my newness, and my unusual background…the fact that I am not a typical man of politics, will be the icing on the cake. And the cake will always be the Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government and its programme,” he said.
His beginnings
Born in Puri in August 1965, Misra spent the first few years of his life in Odisha’s remote areas and small towns where his father, a professor, was posted.
“For the first five years of our lives, my sister and I didn’t go to school. It was far off, and there was no public transport. We had one tutor and were home-schooled.”
He and his sister were sent to a government school after his family returned to Cuttack after five years. It’s in this city that he finished his school and higher education.
A gold medallist from Cuttack’s Ravenshaw College, Misra graduated in economics and political science before taking up a master’s degree at Bhubaneshwar’s Utkal University. He has a double master’s degree in political science and personnel management and industrial relations from TISS.
Always an ace student, Misra was known as the best debater in college for three consecutive years. He also briefly studied at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) but had to return to Odisha because his mother was unwell.
After his master’s, he went to Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to study human resource management, then known as personnel management.
At 21, Misra joined the Delhi-based J. K. Organisation, which sent him to a factory in a remote tribal area near Rayagada on the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border.
“The factory was in a remote location, where the tribals lived… it was a phenomenal experience in rural India, real India,” Misra said.
There was pressure on him from his family to join the civil services but the former corporate honcho wasn’t interested.
“My life has always been full of risk-taking — unusual bets, changing tack completely …No big plans and preparations. As I go along, I learn and move,” he told ThePrint.
It’s a “quirk of fate” that he’s ending his career at the same place that he began — Odisha. “I call it Lord Jagannath’s conspiracy to bring me back to my roots,” he said.
After working with the J&K group for some time, Misra went back to teach at TISS before getting a scholarship for PhD in the United Kingdom.
After his return to India, Misra joined Hindustan Lever before eventually moving to Aditya Birla Group at 28.
Adapting to the rough and tumble of politics
According to the former honcho, the best thing about politics is “the love and affection that you get from the people”. “They give their trust to you.”
He’s also touched by how protective and supportive BJD party’s workers are. “The senior leaders are watching out for you because you are new… all of that is phenomenal,” he says.
But he is adapting — one day at a time — to the chaos of politics.
“In my corporate life, I was used to very tightly structured schedules and time. I think here, your time is something not under your control. I am getting used to it, and I think I am doing pretty well,” he said.
He’s also getting used to becoming active on social media to promote himself.
“I’m not a social media guy…I believe that my work has to be my brand. In my corporate career, everybody knew me for my work. I do not believe in self-promotion… I have never done it. Social media is a little bit about self-promotion, let’s not deny it,” he said.
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