In 2012, Patra unsuccessfully fought a municipal election as the BJP's candidate from Delhi's Kashmiri Gate and at the same time resigned from his job to pursue politics full-time. Much before the election, in the year 2010, he was appointed as the spokesperson for Delhi unit of BJP. In the run-up to the Lok Sabhaelections in 2014, Patra campaigned for the BJP and gained visibility on national television. When the BJP came to power, Patra became its national spokesperson. In 2017, Appointments Committee of the Cabinet appointed him as a non-official director of ONGC. Patra contested the Puri Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 Indian general election, and lost to sitting Biju Janata Dal member Pinaki Misra by 11,700 votes.
Controversies
In February 2016, Patra showed a manipulated version of the famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph. Patra held up that image during a TV debate and claimed that the image showed Indian Army soldiers on India's border whereas the actual image depicted an island in the Pacific Ocean and referred to events in 1945 during the Second World War. In June 2017, Patra retweeted a tweet by a Pakistani news website which has tweeted misleading reports. In August 2017, Patra tweeted a poster showing an image of Hamid Ansari which alluded to an earlier controversy from 2015 when people had accused then Vice President Ansari of being disrespectful by not saluting when the correct protocol was only for the President to return the salute by the commanding officer leading the parade. During another television debate, Patra had shown video which purportedly showed Kanhaiya Kumar shouting secessionist slogans in Jawaharlal Nehru University. In February 2020, Patra tweeted a fake video of ex-INC MLA Naseem Khan chanting 'Pakistan Zindabad.' In May 2020, A Non-Cognizable Report has been filed against Dr. Patra for defaming comments made against former Indian PMs Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi. In September 2017, Patra was appointed as an independent/Non-Official Director of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd Board for a renewable term of three years. Him being an active member and official spokesperson of the ruling party was viewed as a violation of the companies act and subsequently challenged in the Delhi High Court by Energy Watchdog. The petition also alleged the entire selection process to be "flawed". In November 2017, The Delhi High Court dismissed the PIL on grounds of it being "Unsubstantiated" and "Without Merit". The court also stated that questioning Patra's independence to discharge his official duties as an independent director merely on his association with the ruling party would be "Highly Inappropriate". Later, the Supreme Court asked the NGO who filed the PIL to "Serve a copy to the Union of India". The SC Bench posted the matter for a later date and mentioned “After hearing preliminary arguments, we can issue formal notice.”
