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Political Strategist Prashant Kishor Joins Nitish Kumar's JD(U)

Prashant Kishor has run successful election campaigns for Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar.
Anindito Mukherjee / Reuters

Political strategist Prashant Kishor, credited with running successful election campaigns for Narendra Modi in 2014 and Nitish Kumar in 2015, has joined the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar.

Kishor, who joined the party in Nitish Kumar's presence on Sunday, tweeted, "Excited to start my new journey from Bihar."

Kishor was behind Kumar's election campaign in 2015, when the JD(U) teamed up with Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, and defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Bihar Assembly election.

The JD(U) has since then left the "grand alliance" and allied with the BJP.

Citing sources, NDTV reported that Kishor would help broker peace with RJD, but Tejaswai Yadav, Lalu's son, who is currently leading the party, is against a reconciliation.

"He is the future I tell you," Kumar told NDTV.

Kishor's winning streak came to an end in 2017, when his campaign for Congress, and his attempt to broker an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, proved to be a disaster for both parties in the UP Assembly election.

Speaking at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad, last week, Kishor hinted at joining politics. "In 2019, you would not see Prashant Kishor campaigning for anyone in the manner and form in which I have been campaigning in last 4-5 years," he said, IANS reported.

Kishor said that his organization, Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC), would continue to function. The 41-year-old, who previously wrote speeches at the United Nations, said that IPAC had not received money from political parties.

"We are not for hire. No one can hire IPAC because there is no financial involved to incentivize us to work for someone. Modi did not hire us... neither Nitish Kumar nor Amarinder Singh. Out of three, two are apparently broke. They can't hire us," he said.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.