Prashant Kishor announces anti-Nitish campaign from Bihar CM’s hometown

Patna: Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor on Sunday announced that a signature campaign against the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar will be launched next month from the ancestral village of the chief minister.

The announcement came at a press conference in Harnaut, the assembly segment in Nalanda district from where the JD(U) president had begun his political career in the 1980s.

"We often hear that even if Nitish Kumar may have not done a lot for the state, he has brought development to his home district. To bust the myth, we have decided to launch our signature campaign on May 11 from the Kalyan Bigaha," Kishor said.

"Let it be known to all what is the state of affairs in Kumar's own village. We will expose his government's failure to fulfil promises like Rs 2 lakh financial assistance to poor families. The CM has told the assembly that there are 94 lakh families across the state that are eligible for such help. But, it appears that the promise is another gimmick like PM Narendra Modi’s talk of Rs 15 lakh to every bank account holder," the former poll strategist said.

Kishor said other alleged failures of the state government his party would highlight were the promise of "two decimals of land to Dalits practicing agriculture" and "massive corruption in the ongoing land survey".

"It would be interesting to find out the reality behind so-called achievements of the chief minister, who has been in power for two decades, in his own village," he said.

The IPAC founder, who had a stint in the JD(U) as a national vice president, was also asked about the threat of a defamation case by senior party leader and minister Ashok Choudhary.

Choudhary, who is a key aide of the CM, has threatened to sue Kishor for alleging that he had "bought" a ticket for his daughter Shambhavi, the Lok Sabha MP from Samastipur.

Shambhavi, hailed as "the youngest NDA candidate" by the PM during the elections, had contested as a candidate of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), headed by Union minister Chirag Paswan.

"He (Choudhary) is welcome to slap as many cases on me as he pleases... What I have said about him and his daughter is commonly talked about in Bihar," claimed Kishor.