BENGALURU: Always seen as a committed organisational man who keeps a low profile, AICC General Secretary and Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka BK Hariprasad has been nominated by the Congress as the united opposition candidate in the fight for the Rajya Sahba Deputy Chairman's post.
Serving his fourth term in the Rajya Sabha, Hariprasad has been an enigma for many within the party for his clout with the high command and the strong backing he has been enjoying from the Nehru-Gandhi family since the days of Indira.
He was a student leader at MES College in Bengaluru in the early 1970s and took no time in drawing the appreciation of party leaders during his tenure as general secretary of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of the Congress.
"It was his dynamism and loyalty that impressed the party high command when he was the general secretary of the youth Congress in the state in 1975," said KPCC functionary and former Bengaluru mayor Ramachandrappa, who has seen the rise of Hariprasad from close quarters for the last three decades.
Hariprasad made a mark with Sanjay and Indira Gandhi and has not looked back since then, Ramachanrappa told The New Indian Express. Prasad, who has failed to win a single election, has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha for the fourth time, which conveys enough about the backing and trust he enjoys with party supremo Sonia Gandhi.
He has been AICC General Secretary for the last 18 years and served as party in-charge of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat. He has also had a long innings as Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the Congress, for 10 years.