Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s former close aides Prashant Kishor and RCP Singh joined hands on Sunday and vowed to take on their ex-mentor in the assembly polls due in a few months.
At a press conference here, Singh, who is also a former Union minister, announced the merger of his Aap Sabki Aawaz, floated barely six months ago, with Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party.
Both Kishor and Singh had been in Kumar’s JD(U) before falling apart with the chief minister.
Kishor, a former political strategist, was the national vice president of the JD(U), headed by Kumar, until being expelled in 2020.
Singh, an ex-bureaucrat who had served as principal secretary to the Bihar CM, enjoyed key organisational posts in the party, and even headed it for a brief period.
But Singh was made to quit in 2022 when he fell out of favour with the supreme leader, who accused him of accepting a Union cabinet berth without seeking approval.
Later, Singh joined the BJP in 2023 after leaving the JD(U).
“Both of us will work together to make Bihar a developed state,” Singh said at a function here.
Kishor told reporters, “RCP Singh was part of a political alignment that paved the way for the alliance between Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad in 2015. What happened in 2015 will now be repeated with the Jan Suraaj Party in the coming assembly polls. He will play a leading role in the party.”
People of Bihar now deserve a government which will work for the overall development of the state, he said.
“Both of us will work together, and the Jan Suraaj Party will form the government in the coming assembly polls. Our focus will be to form a new government in the state which will be free of ‘3Cs’ – crime, corruption and communalism,” Kishor said.
He accused Kumar, the longest-serving CM of Bihar, of running his government through “a handful of retired bureaucrats and four-five ‘thekedaars’ (leaders)”.
“Nitish Kumar is physically tired and mentally unfit. He has no clue what’s going on in the state. The government and the JD(U) are being run by a handful of retired bureaucrats and also by four-five ‘thekedaars’ (leaders). These ‘thekedaars’ are misusing power and acting like vultures,” Kishor alleged.
Claiming that the JD(U) is “now a sinking boat”, he said its workers must leave the party.
Hailing from Nalanda, the hometown of the chief minister, Singh was an Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer, and on central deputation, he first came in contact with Kumar when the JD(U) chief was the railway minister in 1999.
After assuming power in Bihar in 2005, Kumar, who was visibly impressed with the administrative acumen of Singh, persuaded him to come to the state as his principal secretary.
Reacting to RCP Singh’s decision to join the Jan Suraaj party, RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav told reporters, “Both were previously in the JD(U). One was the national president of the party, and another was vice-president. People know who are behind this move and who are orchestrating it. It’s a well-known fact. I don’t have much to say on this.”
The JD(U) took a swipe at Kishor and Singh, calling them “spent cartridges of politics”.
Talking to reporters, senior JD(U) leader and party’s MLC Neeraj Kumar said, “Both are spent cartridges of politics. Prashant Kishor and RCP Singh are toxic elements. Both have betrayed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Now, they have come together. Nothing will happen and their party will face a humiliating defeat in the coming assembly polls.”
PTI
