Bhubaneswar, Feb 11 (IANS): Former Odisha chief secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik joined the Congress party at the headquarters of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in Delhi on Friday.

Patnaik joined the Congress in the presence of AICC general secretary K.C. Venugopal, AICC in-charge of Odisha, A. Chellakumar and Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Sarat Patnaik.

Speaking to reporters after joining the Congress, Patnaik thanked party leader Rahul Gandhi and others who encouraged him to join politics.

The ex-bureaucrat said he will continue to work for the people of Odisha with the experience he has acquired during his career.

Hitting out the BJD government, Patnaik said, "The administration has failed to reach out to the common people. The citizens don't have any option to approach anyone, including the MLAs or Ministers. This needs to change and I will certainly work in this regard."

Patnaik, a 1976-batch Odisha-cadre IAS officer, had earlier met former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi but did not join the party.

He served as principal secretary to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik from 2004 to 2010. He retired in 2013 after serving as the Chief Secretary of Odisha from September 2010.

After his retirement, the Odisha government appointed him as the chairman of the Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) for a year from 2013 to 2014. Later, he became the member of the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) in 2014.

In 2015, Patnaik joined the Anil Agarwal Foundation as President of the Vedanta University Project. However, he quit the Vedanta Group two years later, stating that lack of interest from the Anil Agarwal Foundation in establishing a university led to this decision.