lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Mar 07, 2019 09:37 IST

JD (U)’s national vice-president and election strategist Prashant Kishor has come under fire from his own party leaders after he reportedly sought to project himself as a kingmaker at a function organised by his party’s student wing in Muzaffarpur on Tuesday evening.

Kishor, while addressing the youths and exhorting them to join politics in large numbers, had said, “If I can help in making PM and CM, I can also help Bihar’s youth become MP, MLA or mukhyia.”

“We are a country of 48 crore youth voters. In 1952, 40% of the parliamentarians were of less than 40 years of age. At present, there are only 7.3% parliamentarians who fall in this bracket,” he said at the gathering.

However, some of his party leaders have taken exception to his remarks that suggested he could help make “PM and CM”.

“Nobody should have this misconception that he or she can make anybody a MP or a MLA. In democracy, it is the voter who decides the fate of a candidate. In Bihar, in the party whose vice-president he is, only the political credibility of chief minister Nitish Kumar, party worker’s labour and voter trust can help one become an MLA or MP. So one should not have this misconception,” said JD (U) spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar.

Kumar’s view was backed by minister and senior BJP leader Prem Kumar, who said only the voter could decide who to elect.

JD (U)’s national general secretary Shyam Rajak tried to downplay the issue, saying Kishor had “good managerial skills and had helped BJP during 2014 parliamentary elections and the Grand Alliance during Bihar assembly polls of 2015”.

However, RJD MLA from Sonepur, Ramanuj Prasad, contested Kishor’s claim and dared him to make chief minister Nitish Kumar contest from Nalanda. “If he can make MP and MLA, he should also ask CM to contest from Nalanda,” he said.

Kishor had given a hint of JD(U)’s youth mobilisation strategy by creating a buzz in the Patna University students’ Union elections, which his party won, but at the cost of angering a section of its ally, the BJP. For the first time, JD(U) bagged two key posts of the PU’s central panel, including that of the president.

“Our focus will be youth and we will try to bring them in the forefront, aligning with their changing aspirations. It will also help us in 2019, though we are not unduly worried about general elections due to recent poll reverses for our ally BJP in the three states. NDA remains formidable in Bihar,” Kishor had said in past.