Kishor wanted the new entitiy to declare its PM candidate ahead of LS polls.
New Delhi: Former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi created a furore by claiming that Prashant Kishor had met her husband Lalu Prasad Yadav with the proposal that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and JDU merge together and the new entity thus formed declare its “prime ministerial candidate” ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Rabri Devi’s “revelation” came after Yadav in his recently-published autobiography, claiming that Kishor had met him as an emissary of Nitish Kumar with the proposal that the JDU be re-inducted into the Grand Alliance. Kishor is now the vice national president of JDU.
Rabri Devi said: “If Kishor denies having met Yadav with such a proposal, he is speaking a blatant lie. I got infuriated and asked him to go away as I had no trust left in Nitish Kumar following his betrayal.”
In 2017, Kumar had walked out of the Grand Alliance, which was formed upon his party’s partnership with the RJD and the Congress. However, he re-joined the BJP-led NDA. All our staff and security personnel deployed here are witnesses. He called on us at least five times, mostly here (at 10, Circular Road residence), and also 5, Deshratna Marg, the bungalow allotted to Tejashwi Yadav. Kishor was sent by Nitish Kumar with the proposal—let us merge both parties and declare a prime ministerial candidate,” she claimed.
Kishor, who became a full-time member of the JD(U) in September last year, took to Twitter admitting that he had met Yadav several times before joining the party, but added, “If I were to tell what all was discussed, he (Lalu) would be quite embarrassed.”
Yadav and Kumar are products of 1974 “JP movement” and had long association with each other before they separated in the mid-90s.
Nitish Kumar played an important role in making Lalu Chief Minister of Bihar in 1990. But later on differences cropped up between them and subsequently, Kumar walked out of Janata Dal to form Samta Party with George Fernandes.
Rabri Devi also expressed displeasure over Kumar›s claim that Lalu keeps talking to Kishor from jail, saying, “Even we, the family members, do not get an opportunity for a telephonic talk with him.”