Former Union minister and party leader Jitin Prasada, who had become disillusioned with the grand old party, moved to the BJP on Wednesday, dealing a blow to the Congress ahead of the 2022 state assembly elections.
After meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, Prasada, who was also a member of the G-23 group in Congress that had sent a letter expressing its displeasure with the party leadership, joined the saffron party in the presence of BJP chairman JP Nadda.
“I would like to thank the prime minister, home minister, JP Nadda and other party leaders to give me this opportunity to work. This is new chapter of my political career. This decision of mine has come after much deliberation. BJP is the only party that is working for national building,” he said.
According to BJP sources, the former Congress politician might be invited to run in assembly elections in 2022 and subsequently in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Prasada, who is close to Rahul Gandhi, debunked rumours in 2019 that he was dissatisfied with the Congress leadership and would defect to the BJP. After Jyotiraditya Scindia, he is the second close ally of Gandhi to join the BJP.
After being a part of a group that sent a letter criticising the Gandhis’ leadership in the Congress party, Prasada was attacked within. The party’s section in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, has even issued a resolution calling for his expulsion. According to sources, Prasada was dissatisfied with the fact that he was passed over for the position of UPCC chairman, which was awarded to Ajay Kumar Lallu.
Prasada, who ran for the Dhaurahra Lok Sabha seat in Lakhimpur Kheri in 2019, has stayed away from the party’s operations for quite some time. He has, however, been working under the aegis of the Brahman Chetna Parishad, a front he founded to address concerns affecting the Brahmin population in the state. According to reports, Prasada may be invited to run for the BJP in the forthcoming UP assembly elections.
Prasada was also in the headlines during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when Priyanka Gandhi sought to run a Brahmin candidate against the BJP’s Rajnath Singh from the state capital of Lucknow. According to reports, Prasad was apprehensive to run against Singh at the time because he felt it would be impossible to unseat the BJP veteran on his home turf. In the end, Prasada ran for the Dhaurahra seat and lost for the second year in a row.
Prasada was elected secretary of the Indian Youth Congress for the first time in 2001. In the 14th Lok Sabha elections in 2004, he ran from his home seat of Shahjahanpur and won. In 2008, he was named Union Minister of State for Steel.
Prasada ran for the 15th Lok Sabha election from Dhaurahara in 2009 and won with 184,509 votes. From 2009 to January 2011, he served as a Union Minister of State in the Ministries of Road Transport and Highways, Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Human Resource Development. From October 2012 to May 2014, he served as a Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
