Retired diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He was the third retired civil servant to join the BJP. Earlier, retired bureaucrats R K Singh and R S Pandey joined the party on December 13 last. Singh and Pandey retired as Home Secretary and Petroleum Secretary of the Union Government respectively.
“We look forward to utilise his experience in the areas of foreign and security affairs as well as in issues related to trade policies,” BJP president Rajnath Singh said while welcoming Puri to the party.
Puri, an Indian Foreign Service officer of 1974 batch, served in different positions in the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Defence during his 38-year-long diplomatic career.
The retired diplomat said that he was delighted to formally join the BJP which he had been admiring since long for its “strong sense of nationalism”.
He retired last year as India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. He represented India in the United Nations Security Council during the country’s two-year-long non-permanent membership of the body.
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