Sprinter Dutee Chand, who hails from the Jajpur district of Odisha, has announced that she is keen to join politics.
“I have always wanted to join politics since childhood. My family has also been involved in grassroots politics,” she tweeted on Monday.
“I will continue my career in sports and will join politics when a party working for the welfare of the people of Odisha approaches me,” Ms. Chand told The Hindu over the phone.
Ms. Chand further said she wanted to join politics since her mother had failed to get elected as sarpanch. He mother had unsuccessfully contested the panchayat polls twice in the past, she added.
The 23-year-old athlete, who is leaving Bhubaneswar on Tuesday to take part in the 2019 World Athletics Championship at Doha, said she was willing to continue her athletics career and simultaneously be in politics too. “Why can’t I do both when many actors are doing so?” Ms. Chand, however, did not say which party she is keen to join.
She is a student of law in Bhubaneswar-based KITT University and the university’s founder, Achyuta Samanta, is a Biju Janata Dal MP from the Kandhamal Lok Sabha seat.