Sambit Patra is an Indian politician and has served as the National spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014 and currently serving as a chairman in tourism department. Patra had his first job at Hindu Rao Hospital. He was appointed as an independent director of the board of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) in 2017. On 30 November 2021, Patra was appointed as the Chairman of the India Tourism Development Corporation.

Early life

Patra was born in an Odia family to Rabindra Nath Patra on 13 December 1974 in Bokaro Steel City, then part of Dhanbad district of the state of Bihar, which is now a part of Bokaro district of Jharkhand. His father worked in the Bokaro Steel Plant. He did his primary and intermediate schooling in Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Bokaro. He did his MBBS from Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Burla, Sambalpur, Odisha in 1997 and his Master of Surgery (MS) in General Surgery from Shri Ramachandra Bhanj Medical College, Cuttack, Utkal University in 2002. He Qualified UPSC Combined Medical Services in 2003 and joined Hindurav Hospital as a Medical Officer.

Political career

Patra's political career started in 2010 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party as a spokesperson for its Delhi unit. In 2012, Patra lost the municipal election as the BJP's candidate from Delhi's Kashmiri Gate and at the same time resigned from his job to pursue politics full-time. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, Patra campaigned for the BJP and gained visibility on national television. When the BJP came to power, Patra became its national spokesperson. In 2017, Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) appointed him as a non-official director of ONGC.

Sambit Patra contested the Puri Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 Indian general election, and lost to sitting Biju Janata Dal (BJD) member Pinaki Misra by 11,800 votes, or an approximately 1% margin.