Patna: Amid an ongoing war of words with Nitish Kumar, election strategist Prashant Kishor Thursday tweeted four photographs of the Bihar chief minister paying his respects to and bowing before Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Just hours later, however, the photos were deleted from his Twitter account. An aide of Kishor told ThePrint that they would be tweeted afresh later.
Posted without caption, the photos are being seen as the poll strategist’s response to Nitish’s statement made in Delhi Wednesday. “Maybe he wants to stay with BJP,” he had reportedly said.
Kishor, who hails from Bihar, has been a former aide to Nitish and was a poll strategist for his JD(U). He was credited with Nitish’s 2015 poll victory in the state, but left the party in 2020 on an acrimonious note.
Kishor’s tweet comes at a time when Nitish has just wound up a short visit to the capital during which he met several opposition leaders in a move to cobble up a united front against the Modi-led central government.
In a surprise move last month, the JD(U) severed ties with Bihar alliance partner BJP and reforged its mahagathbandhan partnership with the RJD and Congress.
In Delhi, Nitish held a press meet Wednesday where he criticised his former election strategist in public for the first time.
“In Bihar, he is welcome to do anything he wants. But his statements do not have any relevance and he does not know ABC of what we have done in Bihar since 2005,” the Bihar CM reportedly said, adding: “But they (Prashant Kishor) are so good at publicity… like he is an expert and he keeps talking rubbish. When people talk like that, they have something in mind. Like he wants to be with the BJP or help the BJP.”
On the criticism, Kishor later told the media in Bihar’s Bhagalpur that Nitish was a senior political leader who was entitled to air his views.
“But it is not right to make personal comments. Who was helping the BJP is known to everyone. If Nitish Kumar is giving some sort of certificate, it is a matter to laugh at,” he remarked.
Kishor first came in the national spotlight when his election campaign group Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) helped the BJP win a landslide victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
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Off and on equations
The relationship between Nitish and Kishor — who has worked for the Congress, Trinamool Congress and YSR Congress as well — has been an off-and-on affair since 2015 when the strategist first joined hands with the Bihar CM for the state polls. That time, he was the confidant of not just Nitish but also of RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
After the Bihar polls of 2015, Kumar named Kishor as an adviser for planning and programme implementation in the state. However, Kishor left to work as an election strategist for other parties. In 2018, he formally joined the JD(U) and was made vice-president of the party.
But by 2020, he was out again for his opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens, which the JD(U) had chosen to support.
In 2021, Kishor declared he was quitting work as an election strategist.
This year, however, he was back in the news, speaking about creating an independent space in his home state of Bihar and mulled launching a political party.
This February, Nitish and Kishor had a meeting again for a likely “future association” but a close associate of the strategist said “Prashant Kishor feels there is nothing that can be done for Nitish Kumar”, who now “lacks credibility”.
In May, Kishor announced the launch of Jan Suraj (good governance) Abhiyan and a 3000-km padyatra that would cover every corner of Bihar. He has since been travelling the state and meeting people to garner support for the padyatra, and has in the process made several statements against Kumar’s politics and governance.
Exchanging barbs
On Nitish switching sides last month, Kishor said: “Nitish Kumar was with the paksh (ruling party) a month ago and now he is with the vipaksh (opposition). How dependable that is, is up to the people to decide. But I don’t think that the new dispensation in Bihar will have any big impact on the nation. I see it as a state-specific development.”
He was also reported as saying that “Kumar’s mission 2024 will not succeed. He cannot be established in national politics”.
On Kumar’s governance, he had stated in 2020, soon after his falling-out with the party: “Had there been development in Bihar, one could have found reasons for the compromises made by Nitish Kumar. Did Bihar get special status? He made a request with folded hands to PM Modi to accord Patna University (status of) central university. It was rejected.”
During his recent visits to Bihar districts, he has also taken digs at the CM for alleged failure to implement government programmes and the poor state of the health and education sector.
The JD(U) has responded furiously to Kishor’s barbs. “Who is Prashant Kishore? How is he competent to make comments on Nitish Kumar,” party minister Md Zama Khan told ThePrint.
Even Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav remarked that Kishor’s statements do not make sense nor merit a response.
A senior JD(U) leader, not wanting to be named, said: “When (Kishor) was in the JD(U) as vice-president, he was assigned by Nitish Kumar in 2018 to work for an alliance with the RJD. But his move was then stalled by Tejashwi Yadav. Now we have realigned without him and he is criticising us.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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