Political strategist Prashant Kishor, who was expelled by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on Tuesday launched a campaign to reach out to young people across the state to build a movement - Bihar ki Baat - that he said, would push for accelerating development in Bihar. Kishor, who was last month expelled from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United, prefaced the announcement about his campaign with an explanation about his exit from the Janata Dal United and his abiding respect for the JDU chief.
Then, he started firing questions that appeared to question the effort to project Nitish Kumar as someone who had put Bihar back on the development track. Prashant Kishor, who appeared to critique the performance of his former boss, said Bihar hadn’t moved on most indices since 2005 when Nitish Kumar first became the state’s chief minister.
Watch | ‘Respect Nitish Kumar’s decision’: Prashant Kishor on being expelled from JDU
Kishor linked this perception about Nitish Kumar to the years that Bihar was ruled by Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Lalu Yadav. So when a chief minister came in 2005 who was doing some development, that appeared to have become the gold standard, he said.
But this, he said, shouldn’t be good enough.
The question to ask is where does Bihar stand vis-a-vis Maharashtra or Haryana.
Bihar needs someone who dreams about moving Bihar into the top 10 states on, say per capita income and has the blueprint.
Prashant Kishor announced the launch of Bihar ki Baat, a campaign to identify people across the 8,800 panchayats in the state who had a similar aspiration for the state. “My effort is medium to long term,” Prashant Kishor, who has strategised with political parties to help them win elections, said. He has targeted to get 10 lakh volunteers to enrol till March to build a ‘new Bihar’.
Kishor also explained for the first time his differences with Nitish Kumar that led to his exit. He said the differences had cropped up in the run up to the 2019 national elections over Nitish Kumar’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. On the one hand, he said, Nitish Kumar would say that the JDU could never leave the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and on the other, he teams up with the party that has been soft on Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse. “For me, Gandhi ji and Godse cannot go hand-in-hand,” he said, asking if this compromise had been struck to just let Nitish Kumar stay in power or have two extra MPs in Parliament.
{{/usCountry}}Kishor also explained for the first time his differences with Nitish Kumar that led to his exit. He said the differences had cropped up in the run up to the 2019 national elections over Nitish Kumar’s alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. On the one hand, he said, Nitish Kumar would say that the JDU could never leave the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and on the other, he teams up with the party that has been soft on Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse. “For me, Gandhi ji and Godse cannot go hand-in-hand,” he said, asking if this compromise had been struck to just let Nitish Kumar stay in power or have two extra MPs in Parliament.
{{/usCountry}}Prashant Kishor said he could have been open to it if Bihar could have received a better deal from the Centre due to the alliance. But Bihar hasn’t got the special status that it had been asking for, he said recalling how Nitish Kumar, with folded hands requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to upgrade Patna University as a central university. But he didn’t even get a reply to his request.