72 PARLIAMENTARIAN l juLy 2019
jumping the gun. When he moved into
Kumar’s residence, he was asked to
stitch up a Laloo Prasad and Nitish
Kumar Mahagatbandhan (Grand
Alliance) along with the Congress to
defeat the BJP in Bihar.
Kishor was sceptical about his
ability to bring the two giants together.
Theirs had been a bumpy ride starting
off as being friends a quarter century
ago and then breaking up as bitter
foes. Under Ki shor’s encouragement
and guidance, the two leaders went on
to fight the elections. The BJP was
defeated and Kumar, to express his
gratitude to Kishor, appointed him as
special adviser. Unfortunately, the
Mahagatbandhan soon broke up and
Laloo and Nitish went their separate
ways.When asked to comment on
what happened, especially with RJD
leader Tejashwi Yadav calling Nitish
Kumar paltu chacha for his constantly
changing sides having switched from
being a member of the
mahagatbandhan to the BJP in a
matter of four months Kishor
apparently told the press that Nitish
Kumar had tried hard to make the
coalition work but there were
governance stumbling blocks.
The main issue is that the people in
Bihar were happy with Nitish’s alliance
with Modi and this move has not
dented his popularity in the state, and
Kishor then went on to philosophically
state that leaders constantly change
their alliances as has been the case
with N. Chandrababu Naidu and
Naveen Patnaik. Nitish should not be
singled out for this, he stated.
Kishor, as had been predicted by
Nitish Kumar, was inducted into the
Janata Dal-United last September 16
and became part of Kumar’s inner
circle. The Bharat Vikas Mission, a
consultancy within the state
government was his brainchild. Notsurprisingly, Nitish Kumar hired him
earlier this year to negotiate a seat-
sharing formula, this time between his
party and the BJP for the 2019 general
election.congress failure
Following his success in the Bihar
assembly elections, Kishor found
himself flooded with work He was
contacted by the Congress to help
them win the Punjab and Uttar
Pradesh assembly polls. Kumar’s
attempts to get the Congress revived
in UP turned out to be a more
formidable task than even he could
handle. Even though he struck up a
friendship with Rahul Gandhi, Kishor
could not handle the intrigue and
manipulation that has come to mark
the moribund Congress.
In 2017, he had suggested that
Priyanka Gandhi become the face the
campaign and hold rallies extensively
across UP while Rahul Gandhi
conduct a one month long UP yatra.
But the surgical strikes conducted by
the Modi government post Uri and
Pathankot put paid to this suggestion.
The result was that the Congress
collapsed in UP winning just 7 out of
105 seats in UP.
Kishor did deliver Punjab for the
Congress but party insiders attribute
this more to the popularity of Captain
Amarinder Singh in the state and anti-
incumbency against the Badal regime
and to a lesser extent to Kishor’s
management skills. Many members of
the Congress old guard question why
the entire campaign should be
outsourced to an outsider.
There is one apocryphal story of
how in one of Kishor’s earlier meetings
with Rahul Gandhi, the Congress
President had ordered a dish. Kishor
questioned him as to whether the
quality of food would be at the samelevel as what had been laid out in the
menu, or whether Rahul would follow
the chef into the kitchen and tell him
how to prepare the meal. Kishor is said
to have asked Gandhi to trust him to
deliver in the same way.
That trust between the Congress
and Kishor never got established,
though Rahul and he have remained
good friends.
Ultimately, Priyanka never
campaigned in UP, except for a
5-minute speech in one rally in Rae
Bareilly and also turned down
Akhilesh Yadav’s plea to be a part of
the Samajwadi’s Varanasi road show.
No wonder when asked what was
the big difference between Modi and
Rahul, Kishor stated that while Modi
was willing to take big risks, Rahul was
more of a status quoist.
He is not willing to rock the boat.
Kishor’s explanation for this is it could
be because he had inherited the mantle
of a 100-year old party.
Kishor had told Rahul Gandhi in
2017 that the party could be revived
only if they were willing to movepolitics|personality