Highlights:
- Prasada, has joined the saffron party ahead of the important Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections due next year.
- Jitin Prasada’s exit from the party is seen as a major setback for the Congress.
- Prasada was a part of the G-23 group in Congress, which called for a reorganisation of the party’s structure.
Former Union Minister Jitin Prasada, who was once close to Rahul Gandhi, has joined BJP, giving a major blow to the Congress ahead of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh poll.
The 47-year-old leader, who was the Congress’ top Brahmin face in UP, is stepping down at a time when the party’s Delhi office is meeting to try to resolve a brewing internal crisis in Punjab.
“The only true political party is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is the country’s only political party. The rest of the parties are regional parties. Only the BJP and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi are capable of tackling the country’s current issues, ” Jitin Prasada stated at the BJP headquarters.
Following Jyotiraditya Scindia’s departure from Congress to the BJP last year, Mr Prasada, 47, is the second high-profile former Rahul Gandhi aide to desert to the BJP. In 2019, he dismissed rumours that he was leaving Congress. According to sources, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra persuaded him to stay.
Mr Prasada remarked today, “What’s the point of being a party if you can’t help the people you represent?”
Following Jyotiraditya Scindia’s departure from Congress to the BJP last year, Mr Prasada, 47, is the second high-profile former Rahul Gandhi aide to desert to the BJP. In 2019, he dismissed rumours that he was leaving Congress. According to sources, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra persuaded him to stay.
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Mr Prasada commented today, “What’s the point of being in a party if you can’t help the people you represent?”
His dissatisfaction with his 20-year party was well-known; he was a member of the “G-23,” a group of 23 Congress leaders who wrote to party leader Sonia Gandhi last year, demanding major reforms, “full-time, visible leadership” and group decision-making.
Despite the party’s talk about course correction and the appointment of a panel, little has changed on the ground.
Mr Prasada was one of the few “dissenters” to be granted any role after that cataclysmic letter; he was in charge of the Congress’ Bengal election campaign, which was a disaster.
He spoke out against his own party’s decisions, particularly its alliance with the Indian Secular Front, which is led by a cleric.
“Alliance decisions are made with the party’s and workers’ best interests in mind. Now is the moment for everyone to get together and try to improve the possibilities of the Congress in key states,” Mr. Prasada said in his tweet.
Former Lok Sabha MP from Dhaurahra in Uttar Pradesh was one of the Congress’s top leaders in India’s most politically important state, and his departure is a major setback for the party ahead of the elections in less than a year.
Following the letter bomb, a Congress unit in Uttar Pradesh urged for action against the G-23, citing Mr Prasada and his family’s strained history with the Gandhis in particular.
Jitendra Prasada, his father and a Congress veteran, had challenged Sonia Gandhi’s leadership of the party in 1999, running against her for the position of party president. In 2002, he passed away.
Jitin Prasada, a member of Rahul Gandhi’s inner circle, served twice as a minister in the Congress government led by Manmohan Singh.