Prasad named BJP’s deputy leader in RS

The party’s parliamentary party chief LK Advani forwarded Prasad’s name for the post on Thursday to Vice President Hamid Ansari, who is also the ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

Ravi Shankar Prasad will be the new deputy leader of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. The party’s parliamentary party chief LK Advani forwarded Prasad’s name for the post on Thursday to Vice-President Hamid Ansari, who is also the ex-officio chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

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The post had been lying vacant after SS Ahluwalia completed his term in the Upper House — subsequently failing to get re-elected from Jharkhand during the recent biennial polls.

Prasad, who is serving his third term in the Upper House, will assist Arun Jaitley, the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP’s general secretary and its chief spokesman, Prasad had held various portfolios under Atal Behari Vajpayee’s prime ministership, including the minister of state for coal, mining, law and justice and information and broadcasting.

He started his political career as an activist of the ABVP and was arrested during the JP movement in Bihar. Prasad was prominent among those who opposed the Emergency during the seventies.

The lawyer-activist has been instrumental in the incarceration of several politicians and bureaucrats in Bihar’s fodder scam case. He was also a lawyer in the Ayodhya Ram temple title suit case. He represented Ram Lalla, the deity.