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Journalism of Courage
Reacting to the Bihar powershift, poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who previously planned Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s election campaign, Tuesday predicted that Kumar’s JD(U) won’t be able to win more than 20 seats in the next Assembly election. He said Kumar’s decision to switch sides to the BJP was driven by fear that JD(U)’s seat tally won’t cross five in the next Assembly polls if it remained in Mahagathbandhan, which also comprised the Congress, Left parties and RJD.
“Earlier, I predicted that Nitish Kumar’s party would not be able to win more than five seats (if it remained) in the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance). Today, I am making another prediction — if his party is not reduced to less than 20 seats in 2025 polls in any alliance, I will quit politics,” Kishor, colloquially known as PK, told reporters during his padyatra in Begusarai.
Kishor, who heads the Jan Suraj campaign, was Kumar’s strategist in 2015 when the Mahagathbandhan won 178 seats. In 2018, he joined the JD(U) and became its vice-president only to be expelled shortly after he criticised the party’s decision to back the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). He has been travelling across Bihar since October 2022.
Commenting further on the JD(U) chief’s latest U-turn — Nitish Kumar became CM for the ninth time in 10 years on Sunday — Kishor said it had angered the people of Bihar who would “avenge it”.
“If there is one leader against whom people are full of anger, it is Nitish Kumar… Nitish Kumar might well be thinking that he was very smart, but the truth remains that he was full of guile. He had been trying to befool the 13 crore people of Bihar who would avenge this in the next Assembly elections,” he said, adding Kumar will be “reduced to a situation where he can’t become CM with either alliance”.
Asked to comment on Kishor’s remarks, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar told The Indian Express: “We can understand Prashant Kishor’s desperation after we came back to NDA. Let him first prove himself in politics. He is not a stakeholder in politics. He is trying to join politics after he has exhausted his skills as a poll strategist”.
Earlier on Monday, Kishor also took on the BJP, saying its leaders who criticised Kumar just days ago were now “welcoming him”.
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