‘Nitish Kumar, What a Fall For You...’: Prashant Kishor Hits Back

Earlier, Nitish Kumar had said that they inducted Kishor in the party at the insistence of Amit Shah.

File images of Prashant Kishor and Nitish Kumar. 

(Photo: IANS/PTI/Altered by The Quint)

JD(U) Vice-President Prashant Kishor shot back at his party senior and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar soon after the latter remarked that they “inducted him into the party at the insistence of Amit Shah”.

“Nitish Kumar, what a fall for you to lie about how and why you made me join JDU!! Poor attempt on your part to try and make my colour same as yours! And if you are telling the truth who would believe that you still have courage not to listen to someone recommended by Amit Shah,” Kishor wrote in a tweet on Tuesday, 28 January.

Earlier on Tuesday, when asked if Kishor’s collaboration with Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi – where JD(U) is also contesting in alliance with the BJP – would affect the NDA, Nitish Kumar had come out with a cryptic reply.

“He has links with many people. I have said it earlier, we inducted him into the party at the insistence of Amit Shah,” he had said.

The Janata Dal (United) has been rocked by infighting ever since Kishor voiced his criticism on both the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). The latter bill was supported by the JD(U) in the Parliament.

Kumar, while addressing the media on Tuesday, had also sounded a note of caution to Kishor, when he said, “Someone wrote a letter, I replied to it. Someone is tweeting, let him tweet. What do I have to do with it? One can stay in the party JD(U) till he wants, he can go if he wants…”

Nitish Kumar Had Snubbed Pavan Varma Earlier

A few days back, Kumar had also snubbed Pavan Varma, saying that he can join any party he likes. Kumar was responding to Varma’s open letter to him on the party’s alliance with the BJP in the upcoming Delhi elections.

On Tuesday, the JD(U) national president also said his party will urge the BJP government at the Centre to drop columns pertaining to birth places of parents in the National Population Register form — since it has led to "apprehensions" among many who were not aware of the details.

Kumar, who has been running a coalition government in Bihar with the BJP, said leaders of his party “in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha” will make a request to the government to this effect “even though it is not mandatory to fill up these columns.”

Iterating Opposition to NRC

The chief minister was talking to reporters at his official residence in Patna after presiding over a meeting of JD(U) parliamentarians, legislators and office-bearers of the party's Bihar unit, even though disgruntled top leaders like national Vice-President Prashant Kishor and national General Secretary Pavan Varma remained conspicuous by their absence.

Kumar also acknowledged that the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act had led to "unrest" across the country. But he hoped that the misgivings would be addressed by the Supreme Court, which is hearing petitions challenging the contentious legislation.

He also stated that unrest over the contentious legislation had been going on for quite some time and there was now a need for “normalising the situation.”

Iterating his opposition to a nationwide NRC, the Bihar CM noted, “The prime minister, too, has clarified that such a move is not in the offing.”