Day after Nitish’s dig at him, Prashant Kishor hits back with photo tweet, then deletes

A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s dig suggesting that the former was helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) covertly, poll strategist Prashant Kishor hit back at his former mentor by tweeting the latter’s old photographs with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without posting any text. He, however, deleted the photos — an obvious jibe at Kumar’s previous alliance with the BJP — within minutes. In the four photographs, a smiling Kumar can be seen greeting Modi with folded hands.

On Wednesday, Kumar hit out at Kishor, his former party colleague, for saying that JD(U)’s decision to switch alliance will have a regional and not national impact. Calling Kishor a “publicity expert”, Kumar suggested that Kishor may be working to help the BJP covertly. “Working with other political parties is his business. Whatever he has got to do in Bihar does not concern us. Does he know the ‘ABC’ of what all has been done since 2005?.. Whatever statements he has been making has no meaning… maybe he wants to stay with the BJP. Maybe, he wants to help them,” Kumar had said.

After Kumar swapped allies recently, dumping the BJP and forming a new coalition government with Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD and the Congress, Kumar had taunted: “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. I don’t think it will have any impact on national politics, but anyone is free to try.”

Also read: Won’t question Nitish for expelling me from JD(U), says Prashant Kishor

The comment was seen to downplay the significance of Kumar as a national player and a potential challenger to PM Modi in the 2024 elections. Kumar scoffed at Kishor’s assessment while talking to reporters in Delhi after a series of meetings with leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Sharad Pawar amid the buzz about him emerging as the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate.

“That man (Kishor) came with me and then I told him to quit this work and come with me. But he didn’t listen to me and throughout the country kept working for so many parties… it is his business (dhandha),” Mr Kumar told reporters. “In Bihar, whatever he wants to do, he is welcome. But his statements had no relevance and you talk about statements but does he know the ABC of what we have done and how much work has been done since 2005? But they are so good in publicity and statements and he is expert in these and keeps talking rubbish. When someone is talking like this, then try to understand he must have something in his mind. Like he wants to be with BJP or help BJP in a hidden way,” he sneered.

After the Bihar’s realignment, Kishor had told reporters that the recent political upheaval in the state was symbolic of the “political instability” that has come to plague the state ever since the rise of the “new BJP” under Modi’s leadership. “We can be certain of only one thing that whatever may be the case, Nitish Kumar will hold on to power as he has been doing for so many years. I can give it to you in writing that the next assembly polls in Bihar in 2025 will see another realignment. We do not know which party or leader will land on which side. But the current scenario will change,” Kishor had claimed.

Dabbling in a political stint in his home state Bihar, Kishor — who had strategised BJP’s 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the JDU-RJD’s 2015 Bihar elections and the 2021 West Bengal polls for TMC — had joined the JD(U) four years ago and was elevated to the post of national vice-president within weeks. After 16 months, however, he was expelled following sharp differences with the party leadership over the CAA-NPR-NRC issue.

Kishor was asked by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to join the party and be a part of the Empowered Action Group-2024 and take care of its election strategy for upcoming polls. But he declined the offer to evolve their poll strategy. He recently launched a mass outreach programme in Bihar called “Jan Suraaj”, which is likely to culminate into a political party.