Prashant Kishor, the master poll strategist of the Indian election landscape and an alumni speaker of the infamous Bright Wing Clubhouse audio leak, is now all set to destroy the fortunes of the Punjab Congress and with it Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Since the appointment of Kishor as principal adviser in the rank and status of a cabinet minister to Captain, media reports have been rife with news of growing discontentment amongst the Punjab Congress ranks regarding the decision.
The resentment has only brewed further after news reports emerged suggesting that Kishor could potentially cut the tickets of at least 30 sitting MLAs and change seats of a few of them for the assembly elections slated to be held next year.
What added fodder to the news was the fact that Kishor operated with a similar ‘modus-operandi’ in West Bengal where seats of sitting MLAs were chopped and changed at the eleventh hour. Moreover, the mass exodus of leaders from TMC to BJP was also attributed to Kishor’s incessant interfering in the internal matters of the party which the senior leaders like Suvendu Adhikari, Dinesh Trivedi and Rajib Banerjee talked about openly after their departure from TMC.
Sensing the situation was spiralling out of control, Amarinder Singh had to come out in front of the media to douse the situation. Releasing an official statement, Singh remarked, “There is no question of it. Kishor has no say in the matter,”
CM Amarinder Singh further added “There are set norms and patterns for ticket allocation in the Congress, which are followed in all elections in all states. In the process of ticket finalisation, inputs are always taken by this committee from various internal and external parties, including independent agencies as well the State party unit,”
Adding that this is the process that was followed in 2017 and will be adopted again this time, Amarinder posed a counter-question to the media, “So where does Kishor come into the picture?”
This is not the first time that dissatisfaction among the Congress ranks has come to the fore. Questions were also raised about seat-sharing in the 2017 assembly elections. Throwing light on the controversy, Congress leader Krishna Kumar Bawa in his recently released book ‘Sangharsh ke 45 Saal’ (45 years of struggle) has mentioned how only the near and dear ones of Prashant Kishor’s team were handed the tickets while the likes of Krishna Kumar were left hanging in the lurch.
As reported previously by TFI, although Kishor will be paid a token honorarium of Rs 1 per month as salary for his services to CM Amarinder. But the devil is in the details and according to official government documents, Kishor will be entitled to a fully-furnished government residence and camp office, executive class travel, official vehicle, medical facilities and secretarial staff as admissible to a cabinet minister in Punjab. Amarinder’s principal adviser has also been allowed an expenditure of up to Rs 5,000 per month on hospitality.
The fact that Kishor did not even wait till May 2 to announce his new destination to Punjab, whilst still working for CM Mamata Banerjee should speak volumes about the confidence he has in his work. In the Clubhouse audio leak, Kishor has already accepted the defeat and blamed Mamata for her appeasement politics and the growing anti-incumbency as the reason for her impending defeat.
However, such has been the Prashant Kishor brand that despite losing multiple states, rather routinely, he gets hired by the opposition with alarming frequency. The ‘Hate PM Modi’ gang has kept Prashant Kishor in business for long and it appears that he is not disappearing from the scene any sooner — given the opposition’s desperation to dislodge BJP and PM Modi.