Modi 2.0 Cabinet: Ravi Shankar Prasad, the originator of Lalu's fodder woes

Ravi Shankar Prasad was the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology in the first Narendra Modi government

Ravi Shankar Prasad was on Thursday administered the oath of office by President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
 

Ravi Shankar Prasad was the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology throughout the first Narendra Modi government. He has also held the Minister of Law and Justice since July 5, 2016. He was the Minister of Communications from May 26, 2014, to July 5, 2016.

Prasad joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students’ wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, in 1969. He went underground when Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency in 1975. A long-time Bharatiya Janata Party politician, Prasad was a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from Bihar since April 3, 2012. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time in April 2002. When the infamous Fodder Scam came into limelight in Bihar, he filed a Public Interest Litigation in Patna High Court and demanded a probe by the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI). He defended Lal Krishna Advani in court when the latter was arrested in Bihar during his Ram Janmabhoomi rath yatra in 1990. Prasad became a Member of the BJP's National Executive Committee in 1995.  He was a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee set up in 2011 to examine matters relating to allocation and pricing of telecom licences and spectrum.

Prasad has been one of the government's spokespersons on various issues, including the alleged irregularities in the Rafale fighter jet deal signed between India and France, combating fake news, misuse of social media, especially for manipulating elections, and the reliability and security of electronic voting machines, among other things

Ravi Shankar Prasad was a member of the committee tasked with preparing BJP's manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The present government's flagship programme of Digital India, which aims to bring about good governance by using information technology, is also being implemented under his leadership. 

Ravi Shankar Prasad contested and won the Lok Sabha elections from Patna Sahib constituency on a BJP ticket.