Bihar: Nitish Kumar Says Exit Door Open to Pawan Verma, Prashant Kishor

Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal United JD-U supremo, Nitish Kumar made it clear that intellectuals in his party like retired bureaucrat and former Rajya Sabha member, Pavan Varma and poll strategist Prashant Kishor were free to leave the party. Earlier, referring to Pavan Verma, the Bihar chief Minister said that instead of writing letters one should come and discuss issues with him.

On January 20, Pavan Varma posted a tweet on his letter to the JD-U chief adding: "This is the letter I have written to Nitish Kumar today asking him how the JD(U) has formed an alliance with the BJP for the Delhi elections, given his own views on the BJP, and the massive national outrage against the divisive CAA-NPR-NRC scheme."

Pavan Varma told media men that he would decide on his future course of action after receiving a reply to his letter from the Bihar Chief Minister. Questioned about Varma's letter Nitish wondered if it was one and added that one should discuss issues in the party before going public.

Nitish Kumar recalled that Prashant Kishor was admitted into JD-U at the behest of Home Minister, Amit Shah. Referring to Prashant Kishor's tweets, the Bihar chief Minister told media persons that his party men worked at the grassroots with the people. They knew little about things like tweeting, he said. The JDU, he remarked, was a party of common people and not intellectuals.

Prashant Kishor has been even more strident in his criticism of the BJP and CAA and had posted several tweets critical of the BJP and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. CAA and NRC would not be implemented in Bihar, he asserted.

Responding to Nitish Kumar's comment on how and why he was taken into JD-U, Kishor termed him a liar. He questioned sarcastically in his tweet that had he been inducted on Amit Shah's, would Nitish have dared to ignore his advice.