A silent struggle is going on between a section of Janata Dal (United) leaders and Prashant Kishor, the lynchpin of Nitish Kumar’s high-tech assembly election campaign in Bihar. The leaders blame Kishor for creating a rift between the chief minister and his electoral ally Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Kishor’s non-profit Citizens for Accountable Governance acted as a force multiplier for Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha election campaign last year, and his Indian Political Action Committee has now been hired to build Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s brand image in Bihar. Several JD(U) leaders, however, feel that the backroom boy “overstepped his mandate”.

“How can the alliance be steady when the two leaders do not share a dais in public?” asked a JD(U) leader. “How can Nitish Kumar do that when someone he trusts so much keeps telling him all the time that his brand image would be affected if he is seen in the company of Lalu Prasad?”

With his strong reliance on data analytics, branding and communication strategies, Kishor has quietly emerged as one of the key advisors of Nitish Kumar in the course of a few months. In this period, however, Kishor has also earned the ire of many senior JD(U) leaders, who are upset with Nitish Kumar’s overdependence on “this political novice” for “political wisdom”.

What ultimately made these leaders voice their displeasure was the “snake-sandalwood controversy” that emanated from Nitish Kumar’s Twitter handle on July 21.

Undoing the damage

The cryptic tweet by Nitish was made in response to a question asking how he would ensure the state’s development in RJD’s company.

The tweet read: “Jo Raheem uttam prakriti ka kari sakar susang, chandan vish vyapt nahin lipte bhujang (People with good nature are like a sandalwood tree, which does not lose its fragrance even if snakes surround it).”

The tweet, seen as directed against Lalu Yadav, created so much controversy that within hours Nitish Kumar had to clarify:
“what I meant by chandan and snakes…was that parties specialising in communalism to vitiate the atmosphere will not affect the development agenda of the JD(U). The JD(U) will remain the chandan, not affected by snakes.”

Many JD(U) leaders believe that Nitish Kumar should not have agreed to such a “politically suicidal” tweet. “The BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] wants a situation like the Lok Sabha election which the JD(U) and the RJD contested separately,” said a senior party leader. “Everybody knows that Nitish Kumar’s twitter handle is operated by Prashant Kishor’s team. How is it possible that Kishor had no role in this tweet?”

It was this resentment that did not let the matter end with Nitish’s clarification. According to JD(U) insiders, several senior party leaders met Nitish Kumar after the tweet went out and advised him to take “some concrete steps” to undo the damage.

Under this pressure, Nitish Kumar drove to Lalu Yadav’s residence late on July 23 without any security cover, remained closeted with him for nearly one hour, and then posed for photographers holding each other’s hands to signal unity.

JD(U) leaders feel Nitish Kumar should appear more frequently with Lalu Yadav so that the political alliance between the two parties could percolate to lower levels. “It is wrong to say that Laluji won’t be able to transfer his votes to his allies,” said a JD(U) leader who was among the first ones to advise Nitish Kumar to visit the RJD leader’s residence. “That is the rumour being spread by the BJP. Unfortunately, some of our brand managers have also started believing in this kind of baseless rumour.”