Election Guru Prashant Kishor Takes Political Plunge With JD(U), Gets Grand Welcome from Nitish Kumar

New Delhi: Political strategist Prashant Kishor, who is credited with delivering election victories for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, took the political plunge on Sunday with the latter’s Janata Dal (United).

Kishor, who is also the founder of Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), joined the JD(U) in the presence of Nitish Kumar.

Tweeting ahead of his political plunge, Kishor said he was “excited" to start his “new journey from Bihar"

Kishore started his career as a public health expert and worked for programmes run by the United Nations. Ahead of the 2014 general elections, Kishore worked closely with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election campaign.

He parted ways with the BJP thereafter and is credited with bringing all opposition parties together in Bihar to script a massive victory of JD(U), RJD and Congress combine in 2015.

Kishore, however, could not galvanise the opposition in UP in Assembly elections when the BJP pulverised the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance and the BSP to secure a three-fourths majority in the House. Interestingly, in the last two years, Kishore's election consultancy I-PAC has been working for YSR Congress party's YS Jaganmohan Reddy.

Interacting with students on September 10, Kishor had expressed his desire to leave IPAC in “safe hands" and return to “work with the grassroots". Hinting at his plans for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he had said, “In 2019, you would not see Prashant Kishore campaigning for anyone in the manner and form in which I have been campaigning in last 4-5 years."

He had added that as “an individual" he would not be campaigning the same way he had done in last 4-5 years, but IPAC will continue as an organisation.

Kishor’s entry in the JD(U) is likely to give a fillip to Nitish Kumar’s prospects in 2019 General Elections with the Bihar CM in a bind lately given an increasingly expansionist BJP. With Kishor in his ranks, Kumar is likely to enter 2019 with better bargaining power.