Harsh Vardhan Shringla, a former foreign secretary to have the rare honour of a road named after him in another country, has decided to help groom young minds from the region to crack the UPSC examinations.

Shringla made this announcement while delivering a lecture at Southfield College in Darjeeling on Saturday.

Apart from the announcement, Shringla’s public appearance after he was pipped to the post by sitting BJP MP Raju Bista for the BJP Darjeeling Lok Sabha ticket was a talking point in town. Shringla traces his roots to Darjeeling.

Although Shringla has remained mum on his political aspirations, his supporters are rooting for his entry to Parliament through the Rajya Sabha route.

On Saturday, Shringla spoke of the “interconnected nature of global affairs” and the way India’s image had transformed over the years.

Shringla also encouraged students to train on skills, spoke on techniques to crack the UPSC and announced the Darjeeling Welfare Society, a nonprofit he heads, would set up UPSC coaching centres in Darjeeling.

“The Darjeeling Welfare Society and Southfield College will soon be signing a MoU for establishing a coaching centre,” said Shringla, who until recently the chief coordinator of India’s G20 Presidency.

Shringla has previously served as India’s foreign secretary and the country’s ambassador to the United States, high commissioner to Bangladesh and ambassador to Thailand.

“Given his vast experience, the BJP is very keen to use his expertise (in this region). There are enough indicators on this front,” said a source.

The source added that although Shringla was never interested in politics, his name was strongly proposed by a strong lobby within the BJP as the party’s candidate from Darjeeling.

“The decision to drop him (as the BJP nominee) was taken at the very last moment. In fact, top guns of the BJP such as Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Yogi Adityanath had deliberated long on Shringla’s candidature,” said a source.

The BJP has won the Darjeeling seat back-to-back from 2009.

Shringla, 62, has a road at Bakerganj in Barishal district of Kalaskathi Union in Bangladesh named after him as a symbol of Bangladesh-India friendship.

The 2.7km “Shree Harsh Vardhan Shringla Road” was inaugurated on August 7, 2023, by local MP Nasreen Jahan Ratna Amin.

Shringla visited Kalaskathi when he was the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh from 2016 to 2019.

Kalaskathi also has a Satindra Smriti Gandhi Ashram founded in 1946 by the then Gandhian leader Satindranath Sen and his associates. In 1971, the Pakistani occupation forces killed at least 360 people together on the bank of Kalaskathi canal. That is why the area has important memories of the Bangladesh liberation war.