Kashmir Digits

After prolonged talks and deliberation between Prashant Kishor and Congress the two parties couldn’t come to an agreement and went their separate ways.

Kishor said the party needs ‘transformational reforms’. Prashant Kishor, who has been politically flirting with the party for over a year now, had pitched its ‘revival plan’ in front of Gandhis early this month.

Announcing the ‘deal breaker’, Congress General Secretary Randeep Surjewala tweeted: “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(s) given to (the) party.”

Speculation was rife that after the dismal Congress show in recently concluded polls in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab that the party will go all out to get the man known as the election magician to revive the fortunes of the party.

Many have been speculating about the potential ‘deal-breaker’ in this affair but there might be more than one.

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Here we take a look at the reasons that ended this possible partnership.

A New Leader.

Often credited for being an early innovator of poll management in India, Prashant Kishor has helped translate votes into victories for political parties, be it Mamata Banerjee’s projection in Bengal with ‘Didir 10 Angikar’, Jagan Mohan Reddy’s ‘Navaratnalu’ in Andhra Pradesh, Nitish Kumar’s ‘7 Nischay’ in Bihar, Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘guarantees’ in Delhi or Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

However, PK, wanted to work with Congress — a party that is facing an existential crisis in the absence of a strong leadership. The extent of the problems can be gauged by the fact that the party has been facing elections without a full-time national president.

Congress functionary claimed that Kishor had wanted two different people as PM candidate and party chief. He wanted Priyanka Gandhi to lead Congress but the party leaders wanted Rahul Ghandi to become the chief again.

Free Hand.

It has come to light that Prashant Kishor wanted a free hand in driving structural reforms within the party and prepare a poll strategy.

Sources in the Congress say that Kishor wanted sweeping powers and a free hand in election management, but the party wanted a group of leaders to oversee the 2024 general elections.

Several Congress leaders opined that no consultant should get the power to run the whole show. Sources told IANS that working style of the Congress was different and party can’t be run from a single window due to which Sonia Gandhi invited Kishor to join the Empowered Action Group for 2024 polls.

His past associations have been mostly with regional parties, which usually have a strong leader equipped with absolute power, which he could access. During the campaigns, he not only played a part in setting up the narrative and agenda but also worked towards revamping the organisations at the state and district levels. 

But the tricky part about Congress is that instead of having a centre of power, the party has multiple, scattered spheres of influence, and consolidating them would be a task in itself.

Weak Cadre Base.

One thing that is common among all the former collaborations PK had had with the past is the massive cadre base of the parties.

If the first leg of any campaign plank is the ‘strong face’ to generate a ‘strong message ‘, the second would be the ability to disseminate it to the grassroots.

He, using the massive cadres of the parties including Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, Trinamool Congress in Bengal, Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, and others, ran massive outreach campaigns to reach out to the voters. 

On the contrary, Congress faces organisational challenges because of a weak, technologically handicapped, and uncharged local cadre.

The conditions are the worst in states like Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal. In the recent bypolls in Bihar, the Congress nominee got just over 1,000 votes, even trailing behind NOTA, and two ‘random independents’.

In Uttar Pradesh, the party lost deposit in 387 seats out of 399 contested.

The IPAC Conflict.

One of the major reasons that led to the end of the negotiation between Congress and Prashant Kishor might have been that the party wanted him and not his company IPAC.

 I-PAC’s tie-up with Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) for assembly polls in Telangana which was viewed as “conflict of interest” by the party leadership could have been the last straw for this deal to end.