Strategist Prashant Kishor joins JD(U) ahead of Lok Sabha polls
Poll strategist Prashant Kishor joined Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) in Patna on Sunday, party sources said.
Kishor was inducted into the party by Kumar, who is also the national president of the JD(U), at the organisation’s state executive meeting at the chief minister’s official residence, the sources said.
Kumar welcomed the 41-yearold into the party by presenting him with an “angavastram” (stole) and the poll strategist was given a seat next to the chief minister at the state executive meet.
JD-U spokesperson Sanjay Singh confirmed Kishor’s joining. “Now Prashant Kishor is a JD-U leader,” Singh said.
Earlier, Kishor had tweeted that “excited to start my new journey from Bihar”.
A resident of Buxar district in the state, Kishor had shot to fame in 2014 when he managed the poll campaign for Narendra Modi, then the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, which went on to put up its best-ever electoral performance.
A year later, he collaborated with Kumar who returned to power for his third consecutive term after registering a handsome victory in the assembly polls which the JD(U) had fought in alliance with the RJD and the Congress.
The chief minister rewarded Kishor by appointing him as his adviser and giving him a cabinet minister rank.
Kishor thereafter worked with the Congress in Punjab, where the party returned to power and dislodged the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine which had been ruling the state for a decade. His collaboration with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, however, failed to bear fruit as it won less than 10 seats in the 403-member assembly. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s newly opened headquarters in New Delhi.
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