Bhubaneswar: Putting all speculations to rest, former IAS officer Sujata Rout Karthikeyan on Thursday joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). She is the wife of former IAS officer VK Pandian, a close aide of former Odisha Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik.

Sujata joined the regional party at Sankha Bhawan, the BJD headquarters in Bhubaneswar, in the presence of Naveen Patnaik and several senior party leaders.

"I had earlier served the people of Odisha under the leadership of Naveen Patnaik for 24 years. By joining the BJD, I am once again getting an opportunity to serve them. I will work for the state with the blessings of Lord Jagannath and lakhs of BJD workers," said Sujata after joining the party.

"I would like to welcome Sujta Rout to BJD. She will be joining as a simple member of the party. You know that she has been an IAS officer and held several important positions, including her last position which was to look after many women in our state. As time passes, she gets used to a new position. She will learn to help people, particularly women," said Patnaik.

"I would like to repeat again that I will be leading BJD in the next election. I want to make that very clear," he added.

Speculation about her entry into politics had been growing since she took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in March 2025. Sujata belonged to the 2000 batch of the IAS.

Her husband, VK Pandian, had also opted for voluntary retirement from the IAS in October 2023 before joining the BJD.

She was best known for leading Mission Shakti, the Government of Odisha's flagship women's empowerment programme.

During her early postings in the Maoist-affected district of Sundargarh, she introduced a bicycle distribution scheme for school girls and added eggs to the mid-day meal programme, interventions that were later adopted across Odisha.

As the first woman Collector of Cuttack and subsequently as Director of Social Welfare, she was associated with the launch of the Mamta maternity-benefit scheme. As Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the Department of Mission Shakti, she oversaw a large expansion of credit flowing to women's self-help groups (SHGs) in the state. 

Among the measures associated with her tenure were the introduction of interest-free loans for women entrepreneurs and the integration of self-help groups into a range of government activities and public services.

Sujata was also described as one of the driving forces behind Millet Shakti, a joint initiative of the Odisha Millets Mission and Mission Shakti that promoted millet consumption and women's entrepreneurship through SHG-run millet cafés, which were set up in several districts.

Sujata Rout was born on 5 September 1975 to renowned paediatrician Dr Akshya Rout of Baluria village of Kendrapada district.