Ex-AIC chief Dinesh Vasu Dash answered two calls to serve

It was a done deal. The papers had been signed and Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash, then 45, was ready to hang up his army greens after 23 years for his first taste of the private sector life as a chief operating officer at a trade finance firm.

- Ng Wei Kai and Goh Yan Han

But the brigadier-general received a request from two senior civil servants amid the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, asking him to reconsider.

They wanted him to join the Health Ministry to help run operations fighting the pandemic.

He agreed, becoming director of its crisis strategy and operations group from June 2020 to October 2023. There, he oversaw Covid-19 testing, quarantine, case management, contact tracing, as well as the vaccination drive, which he is most well known for.

Some time in early 2024, he received another request - this time from then Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, inviting him to consider politics.

"I remember telling him: 'I can help you as a civil servant; I need not join politics to help you,' said Mr Dinesh, 50, one of the PAP's 32 new candidates.

Mr Dinesh was at the time chief executive of the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), which coordinates care services for seniors.

He resigned on March 28, 2025, and was later seen with PAP MPs at community events in East Coast GRC.

About a month later, his candidacy was publicly confirmed by Prime Minister Wong on April 17 at the party's manifesto launch event.

Of the session with PM Wong, Mr Dinesh said: "I felt that he was a person who was genuine and very sincere, and he was a straight shooter, so he will tell you things as they are.

"And that appealed to me, and I felt that then I should be part of his team, if I had the honour of doing so."

Speaking to The Straits Times on April 17, Mr Dinesh said he had been observing local and global politics for several years.

He said: "I see what's happening globally where many countries have regressed into a very inward view of politics, a very inward view of themselves.

"And I think if Singapore gets to that state, we may not be able to recover."

He then decided it was important for him to support any political party which was able to bring Singapore forward.