Baijayant Panda

Baijayant "Jay" Panda is an Indian politician.

He is the national vice president and spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Baijayant Panda was born on 12 January 1964 in Cuttack to Bansidhar and Ila Panda.

He has a degree in Engineering and Management in Communications

from the Michigan Technological University.

He married former model-turned industrialist Jagi Mangat Panda on 13 August 1994 who is the managing director of Ortel Communications Ltd. Jagi Mangat Panda is a Punjabi.

He was also a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha for two terms from 2000 to 2009.

It is a collection of Op-Eds and columns that he has been writing since 2009 for major national media outlets including The Times of India.

Besides being active in Parliament and in his constituency, Panda has been championing several key initiatives.

Some of his major efforts are given below:

Panda is a member of the Citizens’ Alliance against Malnutrition, a high level advocacy group composed of young parliamentarians, from various parties and other influential personalities.

The goal of the alliance is to raise its voice against malnutrition so that collective national consciousness can be converted into action to eliminate the menace of malnutrition.

As part of the initiative, the alliance members travel across the country, visiting regions with high prevalence of malnutrition.

On these visits they meet children, mothers, anganwadi workers, government officials and political leaders to understand why child malnutrition persists.

They also raise the issue in different forums.

The work of the alliance prompted the Naandi Foundation to conduct, in 2011, the nation's first ever large scale nutrition survey which captured nutrition data from over 100,000 children and interviewed more than 74,000 mothers.

This survey, christened the HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) Survey, was released by the Prime Minister in January 2012, at the behest of the alliance.

Panda spearheaded the campaign to reduce the consumption of tobacco products in India.

In December 2012, Australia led the way by becoming the first country to enact a legislation mandating ‘plain’ packaging of tobacco products.

Learning from the Australian example, Panda introduced a Private Members’ Bill in the Lok Sabha to stipulate plain packaging of tobacco products.

His Bill seeks to increase the size of the health warning and the accompanying graphic to at least 60% of the front and back surfaces of the package.

It also prohibits advertisement of tobacco products in warehouses and shops i.e. at the point of sale.

Besides pursuing the matter in Parliament and writing opinion pieces on the issues, Panda has been working closely with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth (HRIDAY) to organize consultations on issue.

One such consultation was organized in Delhi in December 2012 and another in Bhubaneswar in February 2013.

In January 2013, the Times of India carried a story alleging exploitation of migrant Odia labourers in brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh.

Following these reports, Panda wrote to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and the Labour Minister, requesting them to investigate the matter and to ensure that the rights of the workers are protected.

On the basis of his letter, the NHRC directed the Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh to respond to the complaint with all relevant information.

In April, he pursued the matter further by visiting the brick kilns of Ranga Reddy district, Andhra Pradesh to get a first-hand account of the situation.

Panda wrote an article on the depredation of poverty and governance challenge of treating the poor with dignity in life and in death.

He was a Member of Parliament in the 15th and 16th Lok Sabha from Kendrapara.

Elected from the Kendrapara constituency with a BJD ticket, Panda was suspended from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party for alleged anti-party activities on 24 January 2018 and resigned from BJD on 28 May 2018.

He alleged there was a conspiracy against him.

He joined BJP on 4 March 2019 at New Delhi.

In 2019, his debut book Lutyen's Maverick was released in Delhi.

On 8 March 2019, Panda was appointed as the BJP national vice-president and spokesperson.

The appointment comes with immediate effect and has been approved by the BJP national president Amit Shah.

Panda has introduced a number of Private Members' Bills in Parliament over some very important issues.

Some of the bills that he has introduced are: