THE SHAPE OF A NEW OPPOSITION

PK’s recent manoeuvres hint at early moves to reconfigure the Opposition

- Amitabh Srivastava

At his first press conference in Patna on February 18, election strategist Prashant Kishor said he was in the state to get the ‘Baat Bihar Ki’ initiative off the ground, the centrepiece of his pitch being a developmental push to secure for Bihar a place “among the top 10 states”. PK insisted he was not there “to form alliances or stitch election strategies”, but just two days later, he was spotted in a Delhi hotel, meeting with three leaders of the state’s erstwhile ‘grand alliance’—former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), ex-chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) and Mukesh Sahni of the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP).