Prashant Kishor warns of Nitish Kumar’s return to BJP

The tensions between the poll strategist and the Chief Minister intensifies with the former claiming Mr. Kumar’s channels to the saffron party are still intact

The spar between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and poll strategist Prashant Kishor intensified on Friday when Mr. Kumar charged Mr. Kishor of resorting to “publicity stunt by saying frivolous things against him”.

“Kindly don’t ask me about him. He speaks for his own publicity and has been saying frivolous things. But he can speak whatever he wants, we don’t care. He is young. There was a time when I respected him. Those whom I respected had disrespected me,” Mr. Kumar said, when mediapersons asked him in Patna about Mr. Kishor’s allegation.

Earlier on Thursday, Mr. Kishor had claimed that Mr. Kumar’s channel with the BJP was not over yet and that the latter would take another turnaround ahead of the upcoming general elections in 2024.

Mr. Kishor, who has been undertaking a 3,500-km padyatra across Bihar since October 2, had said, “As far as I know, Nitish Kumar is surely with mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) but he hasn’t closed his channel with the BJP”.

“Why one of his party MPs, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Mr. Harivansh, has neither resigned from his post nor the party has asked him to do so or any action has been taken against him?” he asked.

However, JD(U) leaders responded by saying that Mr. Kishor should do a “careful reading of history and precedence” as the post is “apolitical and constitutional that does not necessarily change with changes in alliances”.

Mr. Kishor had joined JD(U) as national vice president in 2018. Mr. Kumar had then described him as the “future of politics”. However, just two years down the line, he was expelled from the party for acting against he “party’s decisions”.