PATNA: Will the well-known election strategist Prashant Kishor once again team up with Bihar CM and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar for the latter’s Mission 2024?
Though Nitish and Kishor have been exchanging sharp digs at each other for a few weeks, their Tuesday night meeting at the CM residence in the state capital Patna has triggered speculations about a collaboration between two ahead of the 2024 general election.
Nitish, who is already working to forge unity among opposition parties from across the country, on Wednesday confirmed that Kishor had arrived to meet him last night. The two met for around an hour, sources in the JD(U) told TOI.
Responding to a media query here on Wednesday, Nitish confirmed having met Kishor the previous night but insisted that the meeting was “normal”.
“The meeting was not of any political significance. There was not much to it. He (Kishor) was brought along by Pavan Varma who had met me a couple of days earlier too. You should ask Kishor about the meeting and why he called on me,” Nitish said.
The meeting between Nitish and Kishor holds political significance because the former has been working to forge unity among the opposition parties to take on PM Narendra Modi in the 2024 polls. Kishor, as a proven poll strategist, can be of a big help in the Bihar CM’s Mission 2024 if he agrees to team with the JD(U) leader. Kishor had worked with Nitish in 2015 assembly polls in Bihar.
Their meeting surprised many in the state’s political circles because both had been speaking against each other ever since the JD(U) leader dumped the BJP last month and joined hands with the RJD to form a new government in Bihar. Kishor has been critical of Nitish’s recent exit from the NDA saying that it was a “state specific” event which was unlikely to have any impact on national politics.
It was Nitish who as the then JD(U) national president, had inducted Kishor into the party in 2018 and elevated him to the post of national vice president weeks later. During his recent Delhi visit, Nitish used many unkind words against Kishor, whom he accused of “not knowing the ABC of good governance in Bihar.”
Retorting back, Kishor said Nitish deserved to be a “brand ambassador for Fevicol” since he has mastered the art of remaining glued to the chair of chief minister amidst all political storms in Bihar.
