 "image")
Who is Jitin Prasada?
Born in 1973 to a politically affluent family in UP's Shahjahanpur, BJP's Jitin Prasada is currently a Minister of State (MoS) in the NDA govt and has been assigned two ministries namely the commerce & industry, and the electronics & information technology (Meity). He is the son of Congress stalwart Jitendra Prasada, who is a former vice president of the Grand Old Party.
Apart from presently being an MoS, Prasada is also a LS MP from Pilibhit, UP, which he won by a margin of over 150,000 votes in the 2024 LS elections.
Education
Prasada attended The Doon School in Dehradun, which is also the alma mater of Rahul Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Later, he attained a commerce degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce, DU and an MBA degree from the International Management Institute, New Delhi.
Political Career
Prasada entered into politics as the general secretary of the Congress. He made his Lok Sabha debut in 2004 from Shahjahanpur and won on a Congress ticket. Later, in 2008, he made an MoS for steel in the Manmohan Singh-led UP govt. Back then he was one of the youngest Union ministers. Right up to 2014, Prasada remained an MoS, however, his portfolios changed. According to several political experts, Prasada was part of a group of young Congress politicians who were close to Rahul Gandhi and were called by many as 'Team Rahul'.
In 2009 LS polls, Prasada contested from a newly-established Dhaurahra LS seat. He won the polls quite comprehensively by garnering over 50% of the total votes. However, in 2014, Prasada faced a massive embarrassment in Dhaurahra as he not only failed to defend his seat, but came at the 4th position behind the BJP, BSP and SP candidates.
With Congress not being considered as a serious electoral player in UP politics, Prasada decided to switch to BJP in 2021, which led to him breaking his family's decades-old affiliation with the Grand Old Party.
BJP rewarded him for switching over as he was first made a PWD minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led UP govt in 20222 and then an MoS in the Narendra Modi-led Centre in 2024.