Former CMD of Nalco Tapan Kumar Chand and five other ex-servicemen on March 6 joined the opposition BJP in Odisha ahead of the elections for the Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Odisha unit president Manmohan Samal greeted Chand and others who joined the saffron party here.
"I welcome Mr Chand and some ex-servicemen to the party. Their presence will strengthen the BJP in Odisha," Mr. Samal said.
Mr. Chand, a former student leader affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), was also the student union president of Utkal University in Bhubaneswar.
He was a full-time CMD of Navratna PSU, National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) on July 25, 2015. Two years later, he joined as the director of Central Coalfields Limited. He also served in Vedanta as Resident Director of Odisha and Chhattisgarh and has over three decades of experience in the mining and metal sector, Samal said.
Of the five ex-servicemen, three had served in the Navy, while the other two had IAF backgrounds, Samal said.
Earlier, on March 3, former IAS officer Hrusikesh Panda, retired Air Marshal of Indian Air Force Dilip Kumar Patnaik, and former Joint Secretary of Rajya Sabha Ramakanta Das had joined the Odisha unit of the BJP.
Besides, four sitting MLAs and six ex-MLAs have joined the BJP so far, party sources said.
