Former News Nation anchor Deepak Chaurasia has joined Zee News as a consulting editor and anchor, according to an email sent to the channel’s staff on Tuesday.

The anchor, who left News Nation amid controversial circumstances in 2021, was expected to return to the television screen with a primetime show on Bharat Express – a new media venture founded by Upendra Rai. Rai had confirmed this in a conversation with Newslaundry.

However, an email sent to Zee News staff by the channel’s HR department on Tuesday said, “Deepak joins us today as consulting editor and anchor…Deepak will be reporting into editor.”

Chaurasia, who has previously worked with Aaj Tak, ABP News and India News in a nearly three-decade career, had joined News Nation in 2019 and left in December 2021, shortly after anchoring his show in a purportedly inebriated state. He was the TV channel’s consulting editor at the time.

The journalist is likely to land a primetime show in his latest stint. Zee News has seen two prominent primetime anchors leave over the last few months: Sudhir Chaudhary, who joined Aaj Tak, and Aditi Tyagi, who left the channel last week and is speculated to now join Bharat Samachar.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication and a Chevening scholar, Chaurasia started his career as a correspondent for the Indore daily Lok Swamy. He subsequently moved to the television news industry.