At JD(U) Meeting, Prashant Kishor Remains Mum on Bengal Venture, But Party Takes a Stand

New Delhi: As Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress prepared to sign poll strategist and JD(U) vice-president Prashant Kishor for the 2021 Assembly polls in West Bengal, all eyes were on a Nitish Kumar-led party meeting on Sunday where Kishor was supposed to explain his stand on the matter.

However, the party leadership maintained its earlier stand that the decision to help Banerjee was not in Kishor's capacity as a JD(U) leader. Party leaders even wondered why questions were not raised when Kishor helped YSR Congress Party chief Jagan Mohan Reddy ahead of the elections in Andhra Pradesh.

On Saturday, JD(U) supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had said that Kishor’s decision to help Banerjee in Bengal was not in his capacity as the party leader, adding that Kishor would explain his stand at the party’s national executive meeting on Sunday.

However, Kishor, who was seated beside Nitish during the meeting on Sunday, did not speak. JD(U)’s national general secretary and spokesman KC Tyagi said that Kishor was doing well in his assigned role in the party.

Tyagi said the JD(U) had no connection with Kishor’s professional firm. “The JD(U) wants Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) to lose in West Bengal,” Tyagi was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.

Kumar’s JD(U) is an NDA ally and Kishor’s move to help Banerjee in the 2021 Assembly polls has been termed as a snub to the BJP, particularly after the ties between the alliance partners strained over ministerial berth in the Central government.

"Kishor joined our party in September last year and we assigned him an important role. But he also heads an organisation that specialises in devising poll strategies for political parties. In that capacity, he has been in touch with various political parties. The JD(U) has nothing to do with it," Kumar had said on Sunday.

"We have nothing to do with his activities in West Bengal. We do not even know what type of services his company will be providing in the neighbouring state. But we understand this episode has given rise to many misgivings in the media unlike in the past when he similarly offered professional help to the YSR Congress headed by Jaganmohan Reddy, which swept to power in Andhra Pradesh," he added.

The BJP and Trinamool Congress are engaged in a bitter battle for power in Bengal.