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Updated: Jan 25, 2020 14:52 IST

Even before the heat over JD(U) leader Pawan Varma’s letter to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar questioning his decision to contest the February Delhi assembly polls with the BJP could die down, Prashant Kishor has caused a ripple in the NDA by targeting deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

Hitting out at Sushil Kumar Modi after he accused some people of being ungrateful to Nitish Kumar, Prashant Kishor tweeted an old video of the Bharatiya Janata Party leader on Saturday.

“There is no substitute to Sushil Modi in giving character certificate to people. Earlier, he used to speak on camera about Nitish Kumar, now that he has been made a deputy Chief Minister, he is giving a written certificate. His chronology is clear,” Kishor also wrote.

The vice-president of the Janata Dal(United) posted the video to attack the BJP leader, who had also posted a tweet.

“Nitish is not Bihar and Bihar is not Nitish. Betraying someone is in the DNA of Nitish Kumar and it is not the DNA of Bihar. He has betrayed the mandate of people by breaking the 17-year-old alliance with the BJP. He betrayed George Fernandes, Lalu Yadav, Jitan Ram Manjhi,” Sushil Modi had tweeted.

Kishor’s latest tweet sent the sparks flying in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) with leaders of both the parties, the BJP and the JD(U), mincing no words to criticise the election strategist.

“He is new to party and politics. In Bihar, what will be implemented will be decided by Nitish Kumar. You can juxtapose politics and business together. These tweets are just to keep oneself in limelight,” JD(U) lawmaker Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh said.

“Sushil Modi is our trusted friend,” he added.

The BJP’s Bihar unit president Sanjay Jaiswal said that one should not take cognizance of Kishor’s comments.

“He is creating a TRP for himself,” he said while party’s spokesperson Nikhil Anand called Kishor a “political dalal.”

Comments, back and forth

Both Kishor and Varma have been questioning the stance of the JD(U) on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) and asked their party to clear its stand on them.

Kishor and Varma have not figured in the list of star campaigners released by the party for the Delhi assembly polls.

Only a couple of days ago, JD(U) national president Nitish Kumar had made it clear to another dissenting leader Pavan Varma that he was free to quit the party.

“Don’t look at the JD(U) in the context of statements by some people. The JD(U) works with determination. We have a clear stand and don’t have any confusion,” Kumar had said.

This is not the first time Kishor has targeted Modi.

“It is nice to be lectured on morality by Sushil Modi, who became the Dy CM due to circumstances despite his party’s defeat in 2015 (assembly elections),” he had tweeted in November last year.

Kishor was responding to Modi’s earlier tweet then.

Modi had targeted Kishor’s seat-sharing formula by saying that “though the seat-sharing pact would be decided by the leadership of the two parties, there were those who had “joined politics without any ideology” and were making statements about “coalition dharma”.