Congress leader Jitin Prasada joins BJP months ahead of UP assembly elections

Congress leader and former Union Minister Jitin Prasada joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on June 9.

The move is a setback to the already-struggling Congress ahead of the next year’s crucial assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, where the Yogi Adiyanath-led BJP government will be seeking re-election.

"I would like to thank the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, JP Nadda ( (BJP President) 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 working for national building," said Prasada who had met Union Minister Piyush Goyal before joining the BJP.

Goyal was present at Prasada's formal joining in the BJP at the party headquarters in New Delhi.

Delhi: Congress leader Jitin Prasada joins BJP in the presence of Union Miniter Piyush Goyal, at the party headquarters. pic.twitter.com/lk07VGygbe

— ANI (@ANI) June 9, 2021

Prasada, 47, is the second high-profile former Rahul Gandhi aide to join the BJP. Jyotiraditya Scindia, another former aide of Rahul Gandhi, had joined BJP last year ahead of by-polls in Madhya Pradesh.

READ: Yogi Adityanath remains an unchallenged leader of BJP in UP, organisational and Cabinet changes likely before 2022 elections

Prasada had denied rumours in 2019 that he was leaving the Congress. He  was part of the dissenting ‘G-23' group of Congress leaders who had last year written to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking sweeping reforms, collective decision-making, and "full-time, visible leadership".

Prasada was targeted internally in UP Congress after he signed the letter, along with other 22 Congress leaders, questioning the leadership. The party’s unit in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri had even passed a resolution demanding his expulsion.

Prasada, sources said, was upset for being denied the post of UP Congress Committee  chief, which was given to Ajay Kumar Lallu.

Also, read: Had Scindia remained in Congress he would have become CM, but now a BJP 'backbencher': Rahul Gandhi

Prasada was Congress in-charge of West Bengal where the party drew a blank in the recently held assembly polls.

He was one of the Congress's top leaders in the poll-bound UP. He was Minister of State in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. But for some time now, he had been maintaining distance from the party’s activities.

In 2001, Prasada became secretary in the Indian Youth Congress for the first time. In 2004, he won the Lok Sabha elections from Shahjahanpur, his home town. He was made Minister of State for steel in his first tenure as Lok Sabha MP under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In 2009, he again won Lok Sabha election, but this time from Dhaurahra in Lakhimpur district of UP.  He lost the seat in 2015 to the BJP.

Prasada is son of veteran Congress leader Jitendra Prasada,  former vice-president of the Congress. Jitendra was also the political advisor to two Prime Ministers, Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and P V Narasimha Rao in 1994.