One-man show vs grand old party: What didn't work between Prashant Kishor and Congress

Usually, a political party announces its inductions only and not someone declining a “generous offer” to join the party. On Tuesday, however, Congress surprised people when it announced that election strategist Prashant Kishor has declined an offer by none other than party chief Sonia Gandhi.

Neither Congress nor Kishor spelt out where exactly they went wrong but their terse messages on Twitter gave a peep into what might have happened. Kishor sought a free hand to run the party throwing to the winds whatever established structure Congress has, a proposition which was not acceptable to a host of senior leaders Sonia consulted.

Congress wanted the 45-year-old strategist to join the party and Empowered Action Group with a “defined responsibility” but Kishor declined the “generous offer” to join the party and “take responsibility for the elections”. If Congress did not spell out the offer, Kishor made it clear that his mandate was limited to elections, at least for the present.

Read | Why Prashant Kishor gave the Congress proposal a miss

Kishor was envisaging a “one-man show” in restructuring the organisation by dismantling the existing system but a group of eight senior leaders tasked by Sonia to study his proposals, which were said to be spread in presentations of around 600 slides, were not in favour. He had several proposals, including making Rahul Gandhi concentrate on Parliament while Sonia or Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking the reins of the party.

He was not ready to be content with dealing with elections alone and wanted a larger pie. He wanted to have a decisive say in alliances, including those with TRS, YSR Congress and Trinamool Congress while dumping Congress’ traditional allies. However, there was serious opposition to it, especially from Telangana Congress leadership.

Another contentious point was his insistence on reporting only to the Congress president. It was like, a senior leader said, he wanted to act like a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) reporting to the Chairman and not the Board.

Leaders felt that it was concentrating more power in one hand and would bury whatever little inner-party democracy it has. It could have made other leaders irrelevant.

Last year too, Kishor had attempted to join Congress but it was aborted after senior leaders felt that his demands could not be met. He wanted to be anointed as General Secretary in charge of strategy and alliances. He also said he would only work for 2024 elections and refused to strategize for the recently concluded Assembly elections to five states.

The last straw was Kishor’s meeting with TRS supremo and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in Hyderabad last weekend. There were also allegations that Kishor had offered to help some Congress leaders if he assumed a powerful position in the party.

Kishor shot to limelight during Narendra Modi’s pre-2014 campaign. He got in touch with Modi and the BJP in 2011 and was instrumental in his campaign. However, he snapped ties with BJP, apparently after his desire to work closely with the Prime Minister’s Office did not fructify. It is said that Home Minister Amit Shah sidelined Kishor.

The strategist’s next stop was Bihar where he worked with JD(U) and Nitish Kumar in 2015, which later culminated in his joining the party and becoming its National Vice President, only to quit later.

In 2017, Kishor advised Congress for its Uttar Pradesh and Punjab polls while in 2019, he worked for YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh and in 2020, for AAP in Delhi. His team also worked with Trinamool Congress for West Bengal Assembly elections in 2021.

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