Political strategist Prashant Kishor on Sunday formally joined the Janata Dal United in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Announcing his decision on Twitter, Kishor wrote, “Excited to start my new journey from Bihar!” The announcement came just a few days after he told an audience at an event in Hyderabad that he may be taking a plunge in active politics.
Reacting to the development, Nitish Kumar told NDTV, “He is the future I tell you.”
The JDU and the RJD had fought the 2015 assembly elections together and the alliance, which also had the Congress as a partner, won a landslide by defeating the BJP. However, little over a year later, Kumar dumped the grand alliance to join hands with the BJP to form a new government in Bihar.
Kishor had managed the poll strategy for the grand alliance in the assembly elections. Earlier, Kishor the poll manager for the BJP as he successfully managed the election campaign for Narendra Modi in the 2014 elections. But, the differences with BJP President Amit Shah forced Kishor to start his independent work as he founded his company Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC).
In the subsequent months, he helped Nitish Kumar get elected as the chief minister of Bihar before helping the Congress during the last year’s assembly elections in Punjab.
One of the tasks that the JDU high command may offer Kishor is to mend fences with the RJD, the party’s former ally, the RJD. However, sources said that Tejashwi Yadav, who’s taken control of the party’s affairs in the absence of his father Lalu Yadav, is not in favour of joining hands with the JDU.
Tejashwi has grown in stature and successfully placed himself as a credible alternative face of Bihar politics. People close to him say that he’s confident of dislodging Kumar from the government in the next elections because of the growing anti-incumbency against the ruling JDU-BJP coalition.
Tejashwi has also not forgiven Kumar for his alleged role in sending his father to jail besides inflicting constant humiliation on the veteran politician of Bihar.