'Doctor' PK to Congress' aid: Contradictions and coherence

Prashant Kishor's close working relationship with several regional parties has him uniquely placed to cobble together a national opposition to BJP

In an ideal situation, human beings should be able to go through life without needing specialist medical intervention for the mind. But there are challenging times when a doctor who prescribes pills can help, but the real work has to be done by the individual themselves. The Congress currently remains the nation's second-largest national party, but also one that's in perpetual crisis. Its workers and state units are demotivated, and there are two forces who are coming at them purposefully and efficiently.

First is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that's in the midst of a national shakedown designed to signal to the bureaucracy, potential electoral donors, political rivals, media and independent institutions that they are Big Boss as the nation marches to the next general election in 2024. The second is a small party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), that's working hard to make its mark in some of the upcoming states where polls are due, notably Gujarat, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, mostly at the cost of the Congress, but they are also positioning to get the support of disillusioned BJP voters. Whether the AAP wins or not is not the point, but it can certainly damage the Congress. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is focused on the strategy of being a party with a presence in multiple states so that the AAP is positioned as the third upcoming national party.

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In the midst of it all is the Congress that's just managed to lose three state elections it could have won even as the existential crisis of the national leadership continues, as do intense rivalries in the states the party still rules.

Enter Prashant Kishor, the political strategist and election manager, who is now tipped to join the Congress. Personally, I have found Prashant Kishor to be one of the sharpest political minds in this intensely political country. I have visited him on-site in his offices in various states where he was working with specific parties and had an estimate of a driven and focused individual. In Bihar 2015, I would meet Prashant Kishor in his Patna office attached to the residence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had that year created the grand alliance model with arch-rival Lalu Prasad Yadav that would win comfortably (although Nitish would later jump ship and return to the BJP). In Patna that year, the not-yet-so-famous Prashant Kishor gave very focused reasons why the mahagathbandhan was unbeatable. I recall him having a role in the messaging and determining which of the two leaders should campaign at which location on which days.

Next, I visited Prashant Kishor in the impressive office his consultancy, I-PAC, had established in Hyderabad sometime in 2018-2019 when he was working to resurrect YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and his young party, the YSR Congress. In that meeting, he specifically mentioned that the new party would succeed because Jagan Reddy had done the hard work of travelling thousands of miles in his padayatra and had curated a message to deliver. There were also catchy campaign songs and messaging that Kishor shared with the visiting journalist, saying content that connects can be easily created and disseminated with today's technology. (Jagan Reddy would win and become the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh in 2019, effectively reducing the Congress to rubble in the region where it was once the strongest).

In 2020, I next met Prashant Kishor in Delhi when he was working with the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. In that pitched election, which took place in the midst of the anti-CAA protests that the BJP tried to communalise, I recall conversations with the strategist about the necessity of not walking into the national party's trap. The AAP would evade and win comfortably.

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My last meeting with Prashant Kishor was in Kolkata's Salt Lake area in late March 2021, where the I-PAC had a huge office, and he was working with Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress for the West Bengal election that he said was the most challenging campaign he had ever worked on. It was a buzzing place, and while sitting in his office waiting, I noted him conversing on the telephone with TMC members on the ground, including workers in a particular booth in the seat of Nandigram, where there were worries the contest was close. All in all, my most interesting conversations with Prashant Kishor have been about the hype vs reality of elections and campaigns, strategies to avoid walking into the BJP's Hindu-Muslim trap and the importance of giving voters some tangible benefit through welfarism.

In 2019, on the day the second Modi government was being sworn in, I ran into Prashant Kishor at the entrance of the annexe of Delhi's India International Centre. He may not recall, but I asked the naïve question that now that they have won again, will the BJP tone down on the anti-Muslim stance? The answer was, no, things will worsen for minorities, and you should be prepared for this.

Prashant Kishor has a native understanding of the BJP, from where he started his innings as a poll strategist and of the many political parties he has worked with since. He is a doer who gets into every granular detail of an election and can post facto provide a very sound analysis of the processes and therefore is sought out by the media. He did get Bengal correct when he took a bet against many projections of a win for the national party and said that the BJP would not cross 100 seats (they got 77). As it happened, I seem to have visited Prashant Kishor in the midst of campaigns that would succeed, so in my mind, he is associated with political success.

Yet, in each of those states, Prashant Kishor was working with compact party units and rooted state leaders, some established and some such as Jagan Reddy, who would prove themselves. The Congress, conversely, is a loose structure that does not have the kind of compact driven leadership. It is faction-ridden in the states and, because of long years in power in the past, still has people who nurture vested interests even if they can no longer deliver. Their motivations differ from the win or perish instincts that would drive a Mamata Banerjee, Jagan Reddy or Arvind Kejriwal. At this point, traditional Congress members are bewildered at what they would do with Prashant Kishor or, conversely, he with them. But since Sonia Gandhi has reportedly taken the decision, they have to live with it. And frankly, it is really a do or die moment for the Congress, so any help should be welcome.

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There is a larger point about the need for politics to be driven by genuine ideology as opposed to being outsourced to professionals who could work for anyone at any time, as did Prashant Kishor, who began his career as a political consultant working for Narendra Modi in 2013-14. Yet, when a unit such as a party seems to be falling into utter disrepair and chaos, is there any harm if an individual offers a blueprint, strategies, and a revival plan? There could actually be a gain.

There is, after all, a desperate need for a coherent opposition. Ultimately, the only way for the Opposition to avoid eventual annihilation is to come together, putting their differences aside, as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin recently said in Delhi (he too had hired the services of Prashant Kishor for the 2021 state election). It is Prashant Kishor's close working relationship with several regional parties, including Telangana's TRS, that has him uniquely placed. Could he eventually push towards cobbling a national opposition with the Congress and regional parties? There are many contradictions as the Congress fights regional parties in several states (and mostly loses). Can there be a formula for not just the revival of the national party but the creation of a giant plan that accommodates regional players when they have a greater proven capacity to take on the BJP in some states?

(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and author)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

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