Prahlad Patel: BJP’s Lodh face in Modi government

New Delhi, May 31 (IANS) Prahlad Patel, known as a down-to-earth leader of the BJP, returned to the Union Cabinet after a gap of 15 years on Thursday when he took oath as minister in the Narendra Modi government.

He was inducted as Minister of State in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2003.

Patel, who hails from Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh's Mahakaushal region, is the Lodh face of the BJP and is considered to be a replacement of Uma Bharti, who was a Cabinet Minister in the previous government.

Patel, a law graduate was once a close aide of Uma Bharti. He had quit the BJP in late 2005 along with Uma Bharti when the latter was denied the Chief Minister's post again and Shivraj Singh Chouhan was nominated instead.

Patel started his political careear as district President of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha and contested his first election in 1989 from Seoni parliamentary constituency. He reached Lok Sabha by defeating senior Congress leader Gargi Shankar Mishra.

He was re-elected in 1996 from Seoni and became chief whip of the party in Lok Sabha. He was again elected in 1999 but this time from Balaghat parliamentary constituency and was inducted as Minister of State in Vajpayee government in 2003.

In 2014, he was elected for fourth term as BJP MP from Damoh. In 2019 elections he defeated Congress's Pratap Singh Lodhi from Damoh by 3,53,411 votes.

This time, Patel defeated Lodhi from Damoh.

He was rewarded for bringing BJP to power in Manipur where he was party's incharge. The BJP formed its government for the first time in Manipur in 2017.