PATNA: Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) has held back its fire over expelled leader Prashant Kishor comments, despite leaders accepting his words qualifying the CM as a ‘hanger-on’ of the BJP, has hurt.In what is being seen as a tactical decision, party spokespersons were asked by the top brass ‘not to retaliate’ and ‘just ignore it.’ Insiders said the JD(U) borrowed a leaf from Kishor’s strategy book for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to ‘not join issue’ with the BJP during Delhi polls and thus ‘disarm’ the opponent and cut traction to any disparaging comment. “In Kejriwal’s success in ‘managing silence,’ JD(U) has ‘neutered Kishor,” said a party elder.
Kishor’s questioning of Nitish’s pro-socialist, pro-Gandhi principles in the light of his support to ‘Godse followers,’ enraged JD(U) cadres but they were warned to hit back ‘at their peril.’ The JD(U), however, ‘commissioned’ BJP leader and Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi to trade fire.Modi made a blistering attack, Wednesday, reminding Kishor that he too was in NDA camp not far back and he had not remembered Godse then. He also questioned Kishor’s gall in referring to Nitish as a ‘fatherly figure’ and then attack him as ‘subservient to BJP’. But, the Opposition lauded Kishor, with RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha saying, “JD(U) stands exposed.”