Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The Indian National Congress, led by interim President Sonia Gandhi and her two children, got a fresh jolt on Wednesday when Jitin Prasad, a prominent Brahmin leader from Uttar Pradesh, joined the ruling BJP ahead of crucial Assembly elections in India’s most-populated state in 2022.
“I was associated with the Congress for three generations. I’ve taken this decision after a lot of thought. If you cannot be of any help to people and protect their interests, then what’s the point? I felt I couldn’t do that in the Congress,” he said after joining the BJP in the presence of Union Minister Piyush Goyal.
Jitin Prasad was a Union Minister in the UPA governments led by Dr. Manmohan Singh. The BJP may use him as a Brahmin face in the UP Assembly elections next year.
Former Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had also joined the BJP last year, welcomed Jitin as “my younger brother”. Reports indicated that more young leaders like Sachin Pilot (Rajasthan) and Milind Deora (Maharashtra) could follow suit.
Jitin’s father Jitendra Prasad had been close to Indira and Rajiv Gandhi but he fell out with Sonia against whom he contested election for the party president’s post in 1996. Jitin, was, however, considered close to Rahul Gandhi until 2014 when he lost the Lok Sabha and then Vidhan Sabha polls. In 2019, he was inching closer to the BJP but the Gandhis persuaded him not to rock the boat. That did not help as the BJP swept the polls.
Thereafter, he faced the heat in Uttar Pradesh Congress and was side-lined after he joined the group of 23 Congress rebels in 2020 who wrote an explosive letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi questioning the functioning of the party.
The local unit of Congress had passed a resolution demanding action against Jitin Prasada and others for allegedly challenging Sonia’s leadership. Recently, the party had made him in charge of the Congress in the West Bengal Assembly polls but the party drew a blank there also.
Electorally, Prasad was not an asset for the Congress, which itself has become so weak in UP that even Rahul Gandhi had to run away from Amethi to find a safe seat for Wayanad in Kerala to enter the Lok Sabha. But his joining the BJP may give the impression that the young leaders in the Grand Old Party no longer felt inclined to remain in it.
Prasad was among the second-generation Congress leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, and Milind Deora who were seen as future leaders in their respective states. They all came from political dynasties like Rahul and Priyanka.
The UP leader’s entry into the BJP has come at a time when Congress is facing dissidence and factionalism in the party-ruled states—Punjab, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. Most young leaders in different states have been side-lined by their seniors, while the party’s “High Command” itself has been postponing internal elections time and again.