RJD, BJP slam PK over his plans to launch political party

Patna, May 2 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Monday slammed Prashant Kishor after the election strategist dropped hints about launching his own political party.

RJD spokesperson Ejaj Ahmed said Kishor should reveal the relationship between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar first, and then talk about Jan-Suraaj in the state.

On Monday morning, Prashant Kishor tweeted: "My quest to be a meaningful participation in democracy and help shape pro people policy led to a 10 years rollercoaster ride."

"As I turn this page, time to go to the Real Masters. The people to better understand the issues and the path to Jan Suraaj - People's good governance starting from Bihar," he tweeted.

"When JD-U sacked Prashant Kishor, Nitish Kumar said that he had included him on the recommendation of Amit Shah before the 2015 assembly election of Bihar. Now, he should clarify whether his relations with Amit Shah and Nitish Kumar are the same or not. So far, Prashant Kishor has not given any clarification on this matter," Ahmed said.

The JD-U had expelled Prashant Kishor in January 2020.

"As far as Jan-Suraaj is concerned, first he should establish relations with the people of Bihar over common issues and then talk about Jan-Suraaj," he said.

"He had talked about the same issue in 2020 but left it soon as he was concerned about the commercial interest of his I-PAC more than the interest of the people of Bihar," Ahmed said.

Nikhil Anand, national general secretary of the BJP's OBC wing, said: "PK is a political broker and his new party will be a political shop."

"Kishor is not a sociologist or an economist or a social psychologist or a political scientist, a journalist or a psephologist. He has a private firm which works for various political parties with the expertise of image making and political propaganda works with Facebook, Twitter, and social media handling. He is purely a political broker who provides different types of services to different political parties and their leaders by taking money," Anand said.

"He has political ambitions for which he has met leaders from all over the country but after being disappointed, he is now going to launch a political party. It seems that some political parties and their leaders want to promote Prashant Kishor to launch his political party so that he can help them by establishing his existence in the role of 'vote katwa' (vote cutter)," Anand said.

"BJP is a party based on organisation, ideology, struggle and we have an army of more struggling, capable, knowledgeable workers on the streets and booths, who are far better than PK, due to which BJP is the largest political party in the world today. We don't take serious notice of political touts and politics shops," he said.

Jan Adhikar Party president Rajesh Ranjan a.k.a. Pappu Yadav, however, welcomed PK launching a political party in Bihar.