Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist who claimed BJP will not win 100 seats in the West Bengal assembly election, has accepted the defeat of TMC and victory of the saffron party in the private clubhouse meeting which was leaked.
Moreover, with his statements over the minority appeasement by the Left and TMC, he has also alienated the Muslim votes that voted en masse for TMC in the last two assembly elections. “Major problem that we have to accept is that there have been efforts for the last 20 years to appease the minorities. Take the example of Bengal. The simple strategy here has been that whoever has the Muslims vote, will form the government. Be it the Left, Congress or Didi’s government, the strategy has been to garner Muslim votes. For the first time, Hindus have realised that there is a party for them. It is not as if there is something wrong with the society altogether,” said Kishor in the meeting with the “eminent” journalists.
As per Kishor’s own admission, BJP is going to win the majority of Hindu votes. “If BJP is getting votes, then, it is due to the Modi and Hindu factor. Polarisation, Scheduled Castes (SCs), Hindi-speaking people are the other factors. Suvendu Adhikari’s exit or my entry has no bearing on the election results. There are over 1 crore Hindi-speaking people here and 27% SCs. All of them are standing with the BJP,” said Kishor.
Read More: Prashant Kishor sees his whole career flash before his eyes after one dumb mistake
Mamata Banerjee was banking on Muslim votes, but Kishor’s blunder of the revelation of minority appeasement, even Muslims are not going to vote for the party in the next four phases for which voting is yet to take place. The majority of these seats like those in districts of Malda, Murshidabad yet to go for elections, this clubhouse meeting revelation would cost heavily to Mamata Banerjee.
Opposition parties like Congress and AIMIM, who are fighting for the same Muslim vote bank, have already started to attack TMC and Mamata Banerjee over the issue.
People in Malda, Murshidabad, etc have to drink arsenic contaminated water. These are fruits of "blatant appeasement". The Left's mistreatment of Muslims is recorded by Kundu & Sachar Committee. Their most famous land reforms didn't reach Muslims. 3/4th of them are landless [3/n]
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) April 10, 2021
Prashant Kishore is proving to be very costly for Mamata Banerjee and TMC. He was hired by Abhishek Banerjee to ensure the victory of TMC but he ended up alienating both Hindus and Muslims from the party, split it into many factions and became the reason behind the exit of many senior leaders.
When Prashant Kishor realised that his Clubhouse chit chat was about to spell doom for Mamata Banerjee, not more than it would for his future employment prospects, he asked his friends, “Is it (the conversation) open (to the public)?” Realizing that it was, Kishor went into a long bout of silence. It was painful. The world came shattering down for an acclaimed number cruncher. One mistake – trusting Lutyens journalists.
As for Mamata Banerjee, she will be furious with Prashant Kishor. And as for the BJP, the man has once again proven beneficial. He has single-handedly demolished whatever little morale remained among the TMC cadre. Going into the coming phases, the TMC’s obliteration will only get exacerbated.