Prashant Kishor finds it tough to revive Congress in UP

Poll strategist Prashant Kishor, the blue-eyed boy of Mr Rahul Gandhi, is finding it difficult to revive the Congress in Uttar Pradesh where Assembly polls are to be held within a year.

While the rank and file in the Uttar Pradesh Congress are confused about his exact role in the state, especially whether it is to give inputs to Mr Gandhi, identify winnable candidates, decide a campaign theme or work on election strategy, one thing is clear — he is emerging as a power centre in the party at a time when he is officially attached to Bihar chief minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar.

If the Kishor factor has put a question mark on the ability of party seniors and Gandhi-Nehru family loyalists to win elections, his suggestion to make Mr Rahul Gandhi, the Congress vice president, the party’s “face” in the upcoming electoral battle against BSP chief Mayawati, UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and the BJP is putting the AICC in an embarrassing position because the Gandhi scion is the Congress’ prime ministerial candidate. Party insiders are assessing whether Mr Kishor wants to make Mr Nitish Kumar Prime Minister and Mr Rahul Gandhi chief minister. “Rahul Gandhi is the de facto Congress president, touring across the country, addressing election meetings more than Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, virtually running the organisation and taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP from the front,” a Rahul Gandhi loyalist pointed out.

In an informal interaction with a group of reporters here recently, Mr Kishor was said to have suggested making Ms Priyanka Gandhi the party’s “face” in UP if the Congress does not want to spare Mr Rahul Gandhi for the state.

While the AICC has been maintaining silence on the exact role of Ms Priyanka Gandhi, the leaders know that it is not confined to Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi’s constituency) or Amethi (Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha seat). “She is a charismatic leader, everybody knows, and there is nothing new in what Kishor is suggesting,” insiders said.

The real challenge before Mr Kishor is how to deliver in UP, revive the killer instinct in the workers who are relying on the charisma of the Gandhi-Nehru family to win elections.

It is also unclear whether the Congress will be fighting the UP battle on its own or in alliance with the anti-BJP parties minus the BSP and SP, and how many seats it will contest.

Mr Kishor had delivered in the Lok Sabha elections because Mr Modi was the BJP’s “face”. He succeeded in the Bihar Assembly polls because Mr Nitish Kumar was the “face” of the JD(U), RJD and Congress combine. But in UP he is finding it difficult to work on election strategy for the grand old party, which lacks a face, strong organisational network and killer instinct because in UP it has become a “party of leaders”.

Another issue confusing the rank and file is whether the party identifies with the upper castes, backward castes or Scheduled Castes, because upper castes have become leaderless in the sense that the BJP too is playing the backward caste card at a time when the SP has become the champion of the OBCs, while the BSP has maintained its grip over the SCs, and the minorities would vote for a party or candidate who can defeat the BJP.