Bengal, Bihar to test Prashant Kishor’s Midas touch

Rasheed Kidwai

Senior journalist and author

Senior journalist and author

Other than Arvind Kejriwal and the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo, the Delhi Assembly elections results, to be declared on February 11, have special significance for a third stakeholder: poll strategist Prashant Kishor.

An Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) victory in Delhi will position Prashant Kishor, popularly known as PK, as someone to watch out for. Bihar, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Bengal are some key states going to the polls till May-June 2021. Except for Kerala, PK is a challenger in each of these states.

Prashant Kishor is the man voters seldom get to see in any poster, but today, at least six chief ministers, cutting across party lines, would vouch for him. Captain Amarinder Singh (Congress), Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena), Hemant Soren (JMM), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Arvind Kejriwal (AAP) and Jaganmohan Reddy (YSR Congress) would go on certifying him as a strategist to reckon with. The DMK’s MK Stalin is the latest to join in. Stalin has also sought the services of the Bihar-born former UN bureaucrat for next year’s state Assembly polls where a formidable line-up of Rajnikanth and the ADMK is speculated to side with the BJP-NDA tacitly or directly.

In Bihar, the former Janata Dal United vice-president has a score to settle. Until Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ran out of patience over his opposition to the CAA-NRC, Kishor was seen as the heir to Nitish and the first among equals in the JD (U) ranks. Nitish had given him the full authority to rope in the youth into the party and train them into committed party cadres and future leaders. As ‘PK ki class’ began, many JD(U) veterans such as Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lallan Singh, Ramchandra Prasad Singh, alias RCP, state president Bashishtha Narayan Singh and others started resenting Kishor’s rise. In Patna, Kishor often stayed at Nitish Kumar’s residence. However, when Kumar went public claiming that he had inducted Kishor on the recommendations of Amit Shah, Kishor accused him of lying. Now, Kishor has promised to address a press conference in Patna on February 11.

Sources close to Kishor claim that his post-2014 political posture has been anti-BJP. He first successfully stitched a JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance in Bihar. Kishor’s pact with Captain Amarinder Singh helped the Congress edge out the Akali-BJP combine in Punjab. In Uttar Pradesh, Kishor’s attempt to bring in UP ke ladke — Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi — boomeranged, giving the BJP a sweeping majority. However, Kishor was back in business after ensuring Jaganmohan Reddy’s success in Andhra Pradesh.

In Maharashtra, Kishor is said to have reached out to the Shiv Sena supremo months before the state polls seeking singular assurance that the Thackerays would not team up with ally BJP. A Kolkata businessman is said to have taken Kishor to Sharad Pawar, after which several rounds of meetings took place and Pawar negotiated with the Congress to keep the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP out of power in spite of becoming the single largest party.

Kishor is currently enjoying Mamata Banerjee’s confidence. The Bengal Chief Minister had reportedly given him a free hand for three state Assembly byelections, which the Trinamool won with ease in spite of the BJP scoring a lead in two Assembly segments during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

In Kishor’s scheme of things, the Congress continues to be the ‘weak link’ in the opposition story. The strategist has been harping on the theme of an eastern-southern corridor to deprive the BJP-NDA of forming the government in 2024. However, there are no takers for his idea of Congress contesting or focussing in barely 200 Lok Sabha seats, primarily in states where it has a direct contest with the BJP, such as Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, parts of Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Many senior Congress leaders view 42-year-old Kishor as some kind of an upstart. Raj Babbar had once described him as a ‘sound recordist’. “He is merely a sound recordist. When the voice pitch goes up or down, he adjusts it. He is not my leader...My leader is Rahul Gandhi,” Babbar had said when Kishor and Rahul were getting along famously.

In Kishor’s assessment, the Gandhis are undisputedly the supreme leaders of the grand old party but they are unable to force any reform or infuse fresh blood in the party. The Congress has been admitting its failure to communicate with the masses but has been unable to restructure its media department since the 2014 poll debacle. It wants to win over the youth on the issue of unemployment and farmers’ distress but is unwilling to launch any fresh countrywide membership drive. The Congress also remains unsure over the Hindu-Muslim issue while dithering over the prospects of engaging

community leaders.

Prashant Kishor had shot to fame in 2012 when Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister, had sought his services. He formed the Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG). Kishor is also credited with establishing the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) which is currently working with numerous political parties in different states.

Sources close to Kishor say the strategist is determined not to let the BJP win any state till 2024. However, Bihar poses a formidable challenge where Kishor is unwilling to project the RJD even though Lalu Prasad Yadav is said to have sent feelers to him. In Assam, too, Kishor is toying with the idea of promoting a new political combination to prevent the BJP from returning to power. As far as Kerala is concerned, Kishor is not unduly worried as the BJP is not a potent political force there. But the Uttar Pradesh 2022 Assembly polls signal a huge void. The SP-BSP and Congress-SP experiments have failed badly. Can the Samajwadi Party regroup itself to pose a challenge to Yogi Adityanath?

But Kishor’s biggest challenge is Bengal where Mamata Banerjee is facing a resurgent BJP. The frequent flyer to Kolkata has a simple message for the Trinamool cadre and sympathisers — do not let the BJP focus on the religious divide discourse. He claims to have saved the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal from falling into the BJP’s Shaheen Bagh trap. Would Kishor’s instincts prove right on February 11? Nitish Kumar will have reasons to worry then.

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