From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Poll strategist Prashant Kishor (44), popular in his group as PK, is back to his tricks to build up an anti-BJP front before the 2024 general elections, holding a 2-hour long dinner meeting with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the latter’s official residence in Delhi, in an effort to persuade him to dump the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined the opposition front.
He is believed to have told Nitish to jump the side as soon as results of the Assembly elections in five states are known on March 10, giving his assessment that the BJP is a loser in every state and this is the right time the myth of the invincibility of Prime Minister Modi should be shattered.
Nitish opted to fly to Delhi for the meeting with Kishor after getting the feelers that he can play an important role in busting Modi’s claim of TINA (there is no alternative) factor. This was their first meeting ever since Nitish sacked Kishor from his Janata Dal (U) in 2020.
On Saturday, Nitish confirmed their meeting, telling reporters not to reach much into the meeting since he has old ties with Prashant Kishor, as much as making him once No 2 as the vice-president of his party. Kishor insisted that it was a “courtesy visit,” stemming from a casual chat they had. When Nitish was down with Omicron infection, Kishore said he rang up to ask about his health and then Nitish had expressed his desire for a meeting, Kishor said, while ruling out any immediate fallout of the meeting.
Kishor, who has been trying to bring together the non-BJP opposition parties on a common platform to take on the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, has been exploring all permutations and combinations to present a viable alternative to the electorate.
It was also on his advice to Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee to expand her base nationally instead of remaining confined to the West Bengal domain that her party contested the Assembly elections in Goa, with a token contest also in Uttar Pradesh.
Nitish Kumar is having running problems with the BJP’s Bihar unit and he knows it is being prompted by the Modi-Shah duo and hence he may be receptive to Kishor’s idea to come on the board of the opposition front and become a main challenger to Modi in the Lok Sabha elections.
Political observers say Nitish Kumar deliberately made public his meeting with Kishor as a message to the BJP troubling him. Since he returned to power in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections with a vastly diminished share in the alliance with the BJP, he has been struggling most of the time to keep the BJP under check.
