Dharmendra Pradhan is a BJP leader and currently the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Skill Development and Entrepeneurship in the NDA government. He is the son of former BJP MP Dr. Debendra Pradhan. He started as an Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activist in the year 1983, and was elected President of Talcher College Students' Union in 1985. Soon he was elected as the national secretary of ABVP and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha from 2004 to 2006. He was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. Pradhan has represented the Deogarh constituency of Odisha. He was also a member of the 12th Assembly of Odisha (2000-2004). He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012. Since then he was a member of several committees like Committee on Government Assurances, Joint Parliamentary Committee to examine matters relating to allocation and pricing of telecom licenses and spectrum, Committee on Rural Development and Committee on Agriculture. 2004 onwards, Pradhan was the party-incharge for Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Odisha.