Age catching up with Nitish, says Prashant Kishor

Political strategist-turned-activist Prashant Kishor hit back at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday, a day after the Janata Dal-United supremo accused him of trying to help Bharatiya Janata Party and not knowing "ABC" of politics and governance.

Kishor, who has launched "Jan Suraaj", a campaign that is likely to evolve into a political party, said it was "laughable" for Kumar to issue "certificates" given that he was with the BJP till a month ago.

"Age is catching up with him. If he has divined that I want to help the BJP, it is his intellectual greatness (vidvata)," Kishor told reporters in Bhagalpur sarcastically.

"Nitish Kumar must be the only educated person around to have said people like me do not know ABC. He knows from A to Z. He should share the knowledge with NITI Aayog which keeps counting Bihar among the least-developed states," the IPAC founder said, tongue in cheek.

Kishor also said that if Kumar was able to deliver on his promise of creating 10 lakh jobs, which he made after ruling the state for 17 years, he would acknowledge that the CM was no less than God.

The celebrated former strategist also sought to make light of the buzz around Kumar's recent Delhi visit, which is being touted as an important step in opposition unity.

"All chief ministers meet other leaders when they visit Delhi. Mamata has done that. So has KCR. Nothing new has been achieved through Nitish Kumar," said Kishor who has worked with CMs of West Bengal and Telangana in professional capacity.

Kishor, who had collaborated with Kumar during 2015 assembly polls and was inducted into the JD-U two years later, only to be ousted in 2020, maintained that Bihar's upheaval was "state-specific" and unlikely to have repercussions on the national level.