Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, April 16: The willingness by both the sides to take another shot at arriving at an understanding is learnt to have yielded fruits with the Congress is believed to have accepted the election strategist Prashant Kishor as its advisor for taking on the ruling BJP in the coming months.
Though different versions were presented by various sections of the Congress on the top-level leadership meeting with Kishor at the party interim president Sonia Gandhi’s residence on Saturday, all the versions were unanimous on one point that despite acrimonious criticism of some top leaders of the Congress in the recent past, Kishor has agreed to work with the party.
Some Congress sources also said the Congress leadership has also suggested Kishor to join the party instead of working only as a consultant and Kishor has agreed to work with other senior leaders of the party instead of only acting as is advisor. The suggestion of one section of the party that Kishor had been given authority only for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh state Assembly elections later this year, was contradicted by a more knowledgeable section within the party who pointed claimed that the tie up with the election strategist was mainly for the 2024 Parliamentary elections and the Gujarat and Himachal elections was only incremental and would form part of the overall strategy of the party to take on the BJP and the leadership of the prime minister Narendra Modi.
The party sources said some top Congress leaders on Saturday met at the residence of Sonia Gandhi and discussed the party’s strategy for the upcoming assembly polls and the next general election Kishore gave them a presentation on the way forward. The presentation, the sources said, lasted for about four hours and was followed by intense question – answer session.
According to sources, the Congress leaders discussed the party’s strategy for the Assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh scheduled for later this year and holding the party’s ‘Chintan Shibir’ in Rajasthan this month. The brainstorming session is slated to be held later this month to work out the Congress’ strategy to strengthen the organisation at the grassroots level and suggest changes in the party.
Kishore, who has held several rounds of meetings with the top Congress leadership, is learnt to have given the Congress leaders a presentation for the party’s strategy in upcoming elections, including the induction of Naresh Patel, a Patidar leader in Gujarat. Those who attended the meeting include former party chief Rahul Gandhi, senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, K C Venugopal, Ambika Soni, Digivijaya Singh, Ajay Maken and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Such a meeting with Kishor till recently was considered an impossibility giving the stringent criticism the election strategist had unleashed of the Congress leadership, and more specifically of Rahul Gandhi, after the party’s dismal performance in the recently held elections in the five states including the most populous Uttar Pradesh where the Congress was totally annihilated.
The party sources said Kishor has shown interest in the Congress offer to join the party instead of working only as a consultant. He also gave a detailed presentation of the party’s weaknesses and what needs to be done for improvement, such as the Congress would likely concentrate on 370 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, sources said.
Kishor has also given a detailed presentation for the 2024 elections and a small committee will be formed to look at his suggestions and ideas and how to take them forward, senior Congress leader KC Venugopal said after the meeting. It is learnt that Kishor suggested Congress should fight alone in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, and it should form alliances in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Maharashtra to which Rahul Gandhi agreed, sources said.
The differences, however, continued to exists over Kishor’s desire for a Big Bang approach as opposed to the Gandhis who wish to bring in incremental changes, without antagonising party leaders too much by giving the ace strategist solo charge of revamping the Congress.
Kishor had recently resumed negotiations with the Gandhis for a role in resurrecting the Congress ahead of the big polls including the 2024 general election. The two sides had earlier fallen out after several rounds of talks on teaming up. But despite Kishor’s sharp, public digs at the Congress, especially Rahul Gandhi, in the months after the breakdown, both sides have showed willingness for another shot at an understanding after the party’s latest election defeats. The communication “never stopped”, sources say.
Meanwhile, the leaders of 13 Opposition political parties on Saturday expressed deep concern over the recent incidents of hate speech and communal violence in the country, and urged people to maintain peace and harmony.
In a joint statement, the leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and her Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand counterparts M K Stalin and Hemant Soren, also raised concern over the manner in which issues relating to food, dress, faith, festivals and language “are being used” by the ruling establishment to polarise society.
“We are shocked at the silence of the Prime Minister, who has failed to speak against the words and actions of those who propagate bigotry and those who, by their words and actions, incite and provoke our society. This silence is an eloquent testimony to the fact that such private armed mobs enjoy the luxury of official patronage,” they said in the joint statement.
Reiterating their collective resolve to work together to strengthen the bonds of social harmony that “defined and enriched India for centuries”, the Opposition leaders said, “We reiterate our commitment to combat and confront the poisonous ideologies which are attempting to entrench divisiveness in our society.”
“We appeal to all sections of the people to maintain peace and foil the sinister objective of those who wish to sharpen communal polarisation. We call upon all our party units across the country to independently and jointly work for maintaining peace and harmony,” they said in the joint appeal. Incidents of communal violence were reported from some parts of the country on the occasion of Ram Navami on April 10.
