In a major setback for the Congress party months ahead of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, senior party leader Jitin Prasada on Thursday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He joined the saffron party in the presenceof of Union Minister Piyush Goyal at the party headquarters in Delhi.
Who is Jitin Prasada?
Prasada, 47, started his political career with Congress in 2001, then as a general secretary of the Indian Youth Congress.
In 2004, he won his first Lok Sabha election from his hometown constituency of Shahjahanpur. He won in 2009 from Dhaurara. In 2014, he lost to Rekha Verma of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Prasada also served as a minister in the cabinet of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as MoS for Steel. He was recently appointed as the general secretary of AICC for the party's West Bengal unit.
The party denied him a ticket to contest polls in 2019. Prasada wanted to contest from Lucknow. He was also among the 23 Congress leaders who called for an organisational rejig following the poor show in the Lok Sabha elections.
Prasad was born on November 29, 1973. He is an MBA, and a commerce graduate from Delhi University. His father Jitendra Prasada was also a Congress leader and challenged Sonia Gandhi for the post of party president in 2000.
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