Kingmaker looking to be king? PK's cryptic Bihar tweet creates flutters; BJP calls him 'vote katwa'

Kishor was scheduled to meet Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday evening. While he did not meet Nitish, Kishor's arrival in Bihar comes at a time when the cracks between the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents Janata Dal (United) and the BJP are conspicuous.

Patna (Bihar): Is Prashant Kishor planning to set up his own political party? Is the kingmaker looking to be the king? The poll strategist caused ripples in the choppy waters of Bihar politics with the cryptic announcement of a fresh shuruat(beginning) from Bihar, his home state.

"My quest to be a meaningful participant in democracy & help shape pro-people policy led to a 10yr rollercoaster ride! As I turn the page, time to go to the Real Masters, THE PEOPLE, to better understand the issues & the path to Peoples Good Governance," Kishor said in a tweet today. He concluded the tweet with Hindi words that translated to "Beginning from Bihar".

The announcement has come within a week of his statement on Twitter that he had declined the Congress' offer to join a group on strengthening the organisation in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. Kishor is not new to Bihar politics, for he was the vice president of the ruling Janata Dal-United led by the chief minister Nitish Kumar. Kishor was scheduled to meet Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday evening. While he did not meet Nitish, Kishor's arrival in Bihar comes at a time when the cracks between the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituents Janata Dal (United) and the BJP are conspicuous.

According to I-PAC, the political consultancy firm founded by Kishor, he is likely to come out with more details about his future project at a press conference here later this week. While it remains to be seen what course Kishor takes, the state BJP has expressed its vexation. "Prashant Kishor is neither a social scientist nor a political scientist. He is a power broker and a middleman. He can be nothing more than a vote katwa (spoiler) in Bihar politics," said state BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand in a strongly-worded statement.

A section of JD(U) leaders, who did not wish to be identified, also seem uncomfortable with the return of Kishor whom they suspect of having "brainwashed" Chirag Paswan for a rebellion against Nitish Kumar which adversely hit the party in the 2020 Assembly polls. Kishor's announcement comes shortly after he declined the offer to join the Congress, help its revival and enable the grand old party to become a viable alternative to the BJP which has in the past decade achieved a near hegemonic status in the national politics.

Notably, soon after his ouster in from the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) in which he had held the post of national vice-president, Kishor launched an independent project Baat Bihar Ki (Conversation About Bihar) in February 2020, which remained nebulous in its concept. The project also ran into rough weather after one of Kishor's former associates lodged an FIR accusing him of intellectual property rights violation.

Even before formally joining the JD(U), Kishor had worked closely with Kumar, in a professional capacity, in the assembly polls of 2015 when he came in close contact with the latter's arch-rival and the then ally, RJD president Lalu Prasad. His brief stint in the JD(U) remained rife with controversies. Kumar had by then returned to the NDA, and the BJP, with which Kishor appears to have burnt his bridges, remained suspicious of his role in causing trouble in the coalition.

Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi, a former chief minister herself, has gone on record claiming that Kumar had sent Kishor to their house as an emissary at one point of time when he had begun feeling suffocated in the company of BJP, an old ally which had now grown more powerful and domineering. Kumar has neither confirmed nor denied Rabri Devi's claim. However, the CM's own statement about Kishor has added to the mystique of the man who is in his early 40s.

With agency inputs