New Delhi: The Congress is debating the exact party role for poll manager Prashant Kishor, whose plan for revival of the grand old party has been discussed by a select group of senior leaders over the past week. After days of hectic consultations, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Monday started deliberations to take a final view on the matter with a panel comprising AK Antony, P Chidambaram, K C Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik, Ambika Soni, Jairam Ramesh, Digvijaya Singh and Randeep Singh Surjewala and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The final round of consultations is expected to clarify the party’s stand on an issue which has become a talking point across the country, not only among the state Congress units but also among its allies. Over the past week, there was a broad consensus over inducting Kishor but the exact role and responsibility had been left at the discretion of Sonia Gandhi.
The meeting at the Congress chief’s residence has come a day after Telangana chief minister KC Rao, who is also president of TRS, signed a pact with Kishor’s outfit Indian Political Action Committee, which has been working with various parties in the past. Kishor’s past associations with PM Modi, JD-U, YSR Congress, DMK, AAP and TRS had been cited as a problem area by some Congress veterans who had asked the poll manager to sever his ties with these regional outfits if he wanted to join the Congress.
Interestingly, while IPAC and TRS joined hands on Sunday, a similar arrangement had been worked out last between the poll management company and the TMC in West Bengal. Kishor, who played a key role in the historic victory of West Bengal chief minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee in 2021 state polls, had announced that he was taking a break from active role.
The TMC managers nevertheless went ahead with signing a pact with the IPAC for Tripura and Goa assembly polls as also the 2024 national polls. Though Kishor is privy to all that the IPAC does, a technical delinking between the person and the company he founded could pave way for Kishor’s new ambition of joining the ranks of the grand old party and working towards its national revival.
Most of the proposals submitted by Kishor have found favour with the Congress veterans though it remains to be seen what the party decides on one of the most sensitive ones like having a non-Gandhi as the party chief. The other suggestions like radically revamping the party structures may sound appealing but may not be easy to implement given the hold that traditional systems have on the grand old party.
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