Two senior bureaucrats who were in the fray in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections successfully contested their seats and added to the 255 seat tally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state.
Asim Arun, former IPS officer and Kanpur police commissioner had taken voluntary retirement from service earlier this year and joined the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections.
Rajeshwar Singh, a former provincial police service officer (PPS) and joint director of enforcement directorate (ED), quit service and joined the BJP this year. He was fielded from Sarojini Nagar Assembly constituency in Lucknow, a seat that was held by BJP's Swati Singh.
This is not the first time that a bureaucrat or government servant quit their job to join politics. But not everyone was rewarded with success.
A senior UP IPS officer Dawa Sherpa had applied for VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme) and took a plunge into politics. He went to Darjeeling and unsuccessfully took a shot at politics. He rejoined the service in 2012 as the deputy inspector general and was later promoted to inspector general and additional director-general.
SR Darapuri, a 1972-batch IPS officer, hung his boots in 2003 to join politics. He unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha election from Robertsganj in 2014 and as an All India Peoples’ Front (Radical) candidate in 2019.
However, Asim Arun and Rajeshwar Singh, by winning their respective seats, have ensured that they will not land in the same queue as Sherpa and Darapuri.
Asim Arun
The BJP's gamble to field former IPS officer Asim Arun paid off and the party snatched the Kannauj Sadar from three-time SP MLA Arun Doharey who had won the seat, dominated by Dalits and Brahmins, since 2007.
In his maiden election contest, Arun, son of former UP DGP Sriram Arun, defeated Doharey by a margin of 6,090 votes.
Dubbed as the perfume capital of India, Kannauj has largely remained an Samajwadi Party bastion. Mulayam Singh Yadav to Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav – all have represented Lok Sabha from here. Turning tables was not easy for the BJP.
Following raids at several perfumers in the city and associating names of tainted business persons with the SP, the BJP created a buzz for itself. With a former IPS officer leading BJP's prospects in the SP citadel, the party packaged its campaign on law and order and politicians with a clean image.
To consolidate its vote base further, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rally in the constituency.
Rajeshwar Singh
Former ED joint director Rajeshwar Singh made a surprise entry into politics barely one month ahead of elections but he did not disappoint the BJP leader who put faith in him during his quick transition from sleuth to politician.
He defeated SP's Abhishek Mishra by a massive margin of 56,186 votes.
Speculations were afoot that there were several seats in consideration for Rajeshwar but the party finally decided to field him from the prestigious Sarojini Nagar seat in Lucknow.
If insiders are to be believed, a small party office had come up in Sultanpur, Rajeshwar's native place, where he was originally supposed to contest from.
But the party finally fielded him from Sarojini Nagar where a tug of war was going on between several BJP leaders, including former minister Swati Singh and her husband Dayashankar Singh.
But it was not a cakewalk for Rajeshwar Singh who had limited time for the campaign, as he was facing resistance within the party over his last-minute candidature, an unfavourable caste calculus and an outsider tag.
The situation got tougher after the Opposition raised the issue of his wife Laxmi Singh being posted as inspector general (Lucknow range).
However, Rajeshwar Singh managed to canvass the entire constituency to familiarise himself with the constituency as quickly as possible and project himself as the "heir" to one of the most sought-after seat in Lucknow.
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