Poll strategist and former Janata Dal (United) leader Prashant Kishor on Sunday took a jibe at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, expressing surprise that Bihar has the lowest sample testing in the country but it is elections instead of coronavirus that has been more in discussion in the State.
The Assembly elections in Bihar are due in October-November this year.
“Despite the lowest testing rate, 7-9% positive case rate and more than 6,000 cases, Bihar is discussing elections more than corona. Nitish Kumar who had not come out of his residence for the last three months fearing the pandemic, thinks there is no danger for people stepping out of their home to participate in elections,” tweeted Mr. Kishor in Hindi.
Nitish’s response
Earlier, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Yadav and his party Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders too attacked Mr. Kumar for not coming out of his residence for the last 84 days. However, Mr. Kumar had recently responded to Mr. Tejashwi Yadav’s remarks, saying “he was not coming out of residence due to the lockdown, but where he [Tejashwi Yadav] was living, even his party men don’t know.”
With the Assembly elections just months away, political parties in Bihar have gone into poll mode. Senior BJP leader Amit Shah had addressed a “virtual rally” in the State last week. Thereafter, Mr. Kumar had a “virtual” interaction with his party men of different districts for over five days.
RJD sources told The Hindu that Mr. Tejashwi Yadav was not in favour of addressing virtual rallies. “Ours is a party of poor people and our party has always been making actual and real connection with them, not virtual … we’re working out the modalities,” said a senior party leader.
Expelled from JD(U)
Mr. Kishor was expelled from the JD(U) in January this year after his tweets slamming Mr. Kumar over the issues of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens. Mr. Kishor, since then, has regularly been attacking Mr. Kumar on social media. On June 12, he had tweeted to say, “#COVID can’t be wished away. We must fight or it will keep getting worse. Globally, leaders have won this fight with HUMILITY, TRANSPARENCY, SCIENCE & widespread PUBLIC BUY-IN. Time we learn from others and show the courage to go back to the DRAWING BOARD before it’s too late.”
Bihar so far has reported 36 COVID-19 deaths. A total of 3,975 persons have recovered from the disease. The total number of positive cases has risen to 6,355. As many as 1,23,629 tests have been done in the State so far.
