Former Uttar Pradesh IAS officer Divya Mittal (IAS:2013:UP) has announced entry into politics after leaving the elite job but she is not alone to do this. There has been a trend of former IAS and IPS officers forming political parties in Uttar Pradesh. But the challenge to turn administrative experience into political base has often proved tough as most of them have not yet achieved the expected electoral success.
Thus, Mittal’s announcement to form a separate party has only revived the question: Will the experience of running the administration translate into a force to build an organisation in electoral politics?
A former 1992 batch IPS officer, Amitabh Thakur, had also joined active politics in 2021, but his Azad Adhikar Sena, registered with the Election Commission, failed to leave any impact. The Adhikar Sena fielded candidates in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Khatauli Assembly by-elections in the year 2022, but nothing special happened. In August, Amitabh announced that he would field candidates in 100 seats in the upcoming assembly elections. But no success came his way.
Another senior IPS officer of the 1994 batch, Asim Arun, provides a lone exception to the long list of the unsuccessful entrants by officially joining the ruling BJP on 16 January 2022, and successfully contesting the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Kannauj Sadar. Arun is currently a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.
Former DGP Sulkhan Singh, a 1980-batch IPS officer, formed the Bundelkhand Loktantrik Party in November 2023. Sulkhan had retired in 2017 after he had been demanding the creation of a separate Bundelkhand state by merging 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Similarly, Ram Bahadur, a former IAS officer, also tried to make an independent path in politics through his Nagarik Ekta Party. Ram Bahadur, who contested the assembly elections from the BSP in the year 2017, also joined the BJP in January 2022.
Yet another former IPS officer SR Darapuri also joined the All India People’s Front after retirement and unsuccessfully contested from Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in 2019.
Former IAS officer Vijay Shankar Pandey also contested the Lok Sabha elections from Faizabad in the year 2019 by forming the Lok Gathbandhan Party after retirement without success.
Similarly, another former IAS officer Chandrapal formed the Adarsh Samaj Party but to no avail.
It is worth noting that none of these IAS-IPS officers who formed their own party has achieved the expected major success in electoral politics. They seem to have later discovered how difficult is to change the administrative identity to the grassroots political organization essential to register victories at the hustings.
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