- Prashant Kishor and the Congress party are not on the same page, as Kishor’s suggestions were not acceptable to Party High Command
- The problem with Kishor is that he thinks he can walk in and completely change the existing management in his favour
- Kishore should have known till now that patience is the most coveted value one can possess while working in Democratic Politics
If we go by moral standards followed in daily lives, Politics is not a fair game. Rarely do people get what they deserve. And then there are some individuals like Prashant Kishor (PK). His inability to stick with a particular party stem from the fact that he is extremely ambitious. A character which can easily be called unrealistic.
Congress won’t take in Prashant Kishor
Prashant Kishor’s hopes of kick-starting his political career have again hit a roadblock. Of all parties, this time it is Congress which has deemed him unfit to join its ranks. According to a report by NDTV, Prashant Kishor was too eager to change Congress and shape it according to his ideas. Apparently, the erstwhile election strategist wanted to disrupt the working of the grand old party and bring in what NDTV termed as ‘sweeping changes’.
Apparently, in spite of being an ‘acclaimed election strategist’, Prashant Kishor seems to have banked on the public perception about Congress. Congress is promoted by its media allies as a party which is liberal in temperament and is ready to act on suggestions. The fact of the matter is that Congress is extremely Conservative as is evident from their reluctance towards the change of guard in the last 8 years.
Read more: Prashant Kishor proves again why he is the worst political analyst around
Kishor wanted to do a complete makeover of the Congress party. But, as usual, the party of Gandhis was not willing to do it. Reports suggest that the party high command wanted small changes over a period of time. Moreover, Congress High Command was worried whether handing over big responsibilities to an outsider will be welcomed by the party cadre. Congress offered Kishor the responsibility of Empowered Action Group 2024, but he declined and decided not to join its ranks.
Following a presentation & discussions with Sh. Prashant Kishor, Congress President has constituted a Empowered Action Group 2024 & invited him to join the party as part of the group with defined responsibility. He declined. We appreciate his efforts & suggestion given to party.
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) April 26, 2022
I declined the generous offer of #congress to join the party as part of the EAG & take responsibility for the elections.
In my humble opinion, more than me the party needs leadership and collective will to fix the deep rooted structural problems through transformational reforms.
— Prashant Kishor (@PrashantKishor) April 26, 2022
Kishor’s journey in Politics
If you have followed the Indian Political space with even an iota of interest during the last decade, then it is a déjà vu moment in Prashant Kishor’s political ambitions. Currently, very few political parties can assert with evidence that Prashant Kishor did not try to join them. Kishor has tried his hands at party headquarters of national-level parties like BJP, Congress to state-level parties like Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Janta Dal-United (JDU).
Kishor’s first real-life flirtation with his political dream took place in 2014. It’s here, that he made the mistake of considering himself omnipotent. Kishor was a designated election strategist of the PM candidate Narendra Modi. By the time Kishor joined his team, he had already become a household name. Liberal media’s narrative of Narendra Modi being a ‘perpetrator of the 2002 Godhra riot’ was already shattered and his Gujarat model of development was the talk of the town. It was only a matter of time before he would bring victory for the NDA coalition.
Kishor got his fair share of credit, both inside as well as outside the party. But Kishor made the mistake of fully crediting himself for the BJP’s victory. Nothing else explains his demand for a Rajya Sabha seat from BJP. Basically, Prashant believed that on the back of being present in the election war room of Narendra Modi, he could stand in the leagues of acclaimed leaders like the late Arun Jaitley. BJP did not oblige and Kishore was left bewildered.
Read more: You thought Mamata Banerjee was in charge of TMC all this while? No, it was Prashant Kishor
Open defiance of JDU and Nitish Kumar
Kishor’s next tryst with Politics came a year later. In the Bihar Assembly elections, 2015, Kishor sided with Nitish Kumar and handled JDU’s campaign in elections. The thing about Bihar Politics is that, if any two of RJD, JDU and BJP contest the elections as coalition partners, they will come out victorious. In 2015, it happened with RJD and JDU. They contested against BJP and emerged as winners.
Nitish Kumar probably did not realise the importance of the aforementioned equation and credited Kishor for his victory. Kishor was now a full-time member of JDU. There also, his volatile nature started to affect his friendship with Kumar. His first act of rebellion against Nitish came after Bihar CM ditched RJD and joined hands with BJP in the state. Prashant held the view that there should have been a new election instead of the coalition government of JDU and BJP. Later, he aired his views against Nitish Kumar on multiple occasions. The last nail in the coffin of Kishor’s friendship with JDU was struck when he decided to oppose CAA. In January 2020, JDU (particularly Nitish Kumar) expelled Kishor.
Read more: Bihar by-poll results have a hidden message for BJP
Failed when real challenge arrived
While being in JDU, Kishor and his I-PAC were officially tasked with handling election campaigns for Punjab Congress (2017), UP Congress (2017), YSRCP in Andhra (2019) and Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP (2020). Prashant played his cards well as he joined only those camps which were already way ahead compared to their rivals. The only real test which Prashant faced during this period was reviving Congress’ fortunes in UP, which he failed miserably.
Kishor needs to be patient
Then came the Bengal assembly elections, 2021. Though there was an anti-incumbency wave against Mamata Banerjee, it was certain that Muslims would be voting unanimously for TMC. All TMC had to do was convince Bengali Bhadraloks to vote for them, which they did and the party emerged victorious in assembly elections.
Read more: Ramzan and the appeasement politics of ‘secular’ governments
Kishor’s habit of tempering with parties’ functioning continued in TMC as well. Prashant’s recommendations effectively promoted young heirs like Abhishek Banerjee over that of Mamata Banerjee. The old matriarch was not going to take it lightly and there have been rumours of TMC ending the contract with Kishor’s team before the stipulated time.
Prashant Kishor has officially claimed that he has left his job as an election strategist. It means that joining politics is next on his agenda, which was evident from his recent attempt (failed) to woo Congress. But politics is a game of compromises. You just cannot walk in and order the war room strategist to run on your orders. Kishor should remember that it took nearly 100 years for a nationalistic ideology to get to power in the Centre. Patience is the key PK, Patience…
