After Tasting Victory in Lok Sabha Election Debut, Ravi Shankar Prasad Returns for Second Innings as Law Minister

A veteran BJP warhorse, Ravi Shankar Prasad is all set for another innings in the new Narendra Modi government as the Union Law Minister. He will also be in charge of the Minister of Communications and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology.

The former minister for electronics and information technology, Prasad has held cabinet portfolios in all BJP governments starting from Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Prasad shot to prominence in politics as an ABVP activist and a devoted RSS worker. As part of Jayprakash Narayan’s Total Revolution movement, he went to jail for agitating against former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Before becoming a member of the top policy-making body of BJP (National Executive) in 1995, he successfully handled many responsibilities in the student, youth wings and main party organisation.

He first became MP and Coal Minister in the first NDA government in 2001. He was made minister for Law and Justice in July 2002 and then Minister of Information and Broadcasting in 2003. In 2006, he not only became a Rajya Sabha member but also went on to become BJP’s national spokesperson and then the Deputy Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha in 2012.

Prasad, a Supreme Court senior advocate who served four terms in the Rajya Sabha, contested his first Lok Sabha election in 2019, locking horns with actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha who had won from the Patna Sahib seat in Bihar in 2009 and 2014. However, Prasad tasted victory in the seat with over six lakh votes.