Nitish Kumar getting delusional: Prashant Kishore

Patna, Oct 10: A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that Prashant Kishor had once asked him to merge his Janata Dal (United) with the Congress party and that the poll strategist was now working for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Kishor hit back Sunday, charging that Nitish was “getting delusional” with age as well as “politically isolated and nervous” in the company of his “untrustworthy” associates.

 

 

 

During his visit to socialist icon Jayaprakash Narayan’s village, Sitab Diara in Saran district, on his death anniversary Saturday, Nitish had told reporters: “I don’t understand why he (Prashant) has been making so many statements (against me). Let him say what he wants to say. He had once made me an offer about the JD(U)’s merger with Congress. He used to stay at my house. Now, he has been working for BJP”.

 

 

 

With the war of words continuing to rage between the CM and Kishor, the curious equation between them seems to be getting curioser. Kishor joined the JD(U) in 2018 and was even elevated to its national vice president post, but he was expelled from the party in early 2020 after he fell out with Nitish. Speaking to The Indian Express, JD (U) national spokesperson KC Tyagi said: “I fully endorse what the Bihar CM said on (Kishor’s) merger offer. It was sometime between 2016 and 2017 (before the JD(U) rejoined the NDA). Prashant told me that there was an offer from Congress that if JD (U) merges with it, Rahul Gandhi would be AICC president and Nitish Kumar could be made its campaign committee chairperson (for the 2019 general elections). There was also an offer to make me Congress national general secretary and Pavan Varma one of its spokespersons. I said if Nitish Kumar agreed, I had no issue”. On the fate of this purported offer from Kishor, Tyagi said: “Nitish Kumar never discussed it with me. Nor was there any follow-up from Prashant. It is quite possible that Prashant could not take the matter further”. Before Nitish returned to the NDA in July 2017, he had made repeated attempts to his acceptability as an essential leader who could work for the Opposition unity. He had tried to make a pitch for liquor prohibition, which he imposed in Bihar in April 2016, at the national level. He also held meetings with several Gandhians in UP and Maharashtra. However, Congress or any other Opposition party did not respond to his overtures.

 

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The attempts to the unification of all Janata Parivar parties through the merger of the JD (U), RJD, JD (S), SP, and INLD had then also failed. Before returning to the NDA, Nitish had taken another shot at his national ambition by meeting Rahul Gandhi, but it did not result in any breakthrough that led to his declaration then that he had got the “mandate to serve Bihar”.