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Updated: Jun 09, 2019 19:23 IST

The Janata Dal (U) on Sunday distanced itself from its national vice president and poll strategist Prashant Kishor helping West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, asking why questions were not raised when Kishor helped Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh.

“The JD(U) has no connection with Kishor’s professional firm. Nobody questioned when he (Kishor) worked for Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. The JD(U) wants Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) to lose West Bengal,” said JD(U) national general secretary and spokesman KC Tyagi after the national executive meeting here.

Also read:Mamata reaches out to Prashant Kishor for 2021 polls. This time, he says Yes

It was being speculated that the BJP, which is leaving no stone unturned to dethrone Mamata Banerjee in the assembly elections to be held in 2021, is not happy with Kishor’s intervention in West Bengal to help the TMC.

“Kishor is doing well in the party in accordance with the role he has been assigned,” said Tyagi.

At the meet, Kishor was sitting beside CM Nitish Kumar, who is also the JD(U) national president. However, there was no explanation from the master poll strategist as he did not speak during the meet.

On Saturday, Nitish Kumar had stated that Kishor would explain the reason for his firm’s association with the Bengal CM.

Also read:‘He’ll tell about it himself’: Nitish on Prashant Kishor in Mamata team

Many in the opposition dubbed Kishor’s act as an apparent snub to the BJP, particularly after Nitish Kumar declined to accept the one berth being offered in the NDA government at the Centre. Nitish called BJP’s offer of one berth a “symbolic representation”.

“In an alliance, our feeling was that there should be a proportional representation,m” Nitish was quoted at saying at the time.

Kishor, who helped Jagan Mohan Reddy sweep Andhra Pradesh, was inducted into the JD(U) in September 2017. Earlier, he also extended his professional support to the Congress in Punjab that led to the formation of Amarinder Singh-led government there in 2017.