Prashant Kishor finds only factions, no organisation

The Congress in Uttar Pradesh is proving to be a bigger problem for the Congress itself. Defiant party leaders, buoyed up by factionalism, and complacent party cadres are proving to be the biggest hurdle for political strategist Prashant Kishor, who has been entrusted the task of reviving the party in Uttar Pradesh.

The defiant attitude of the party leaders can be gauged from the fact that when Mr Kishor sought feedback on a questionnaire from all district party units, the district leaders in Rae Bareli, Amethi and Sultanpur refused to comply. They said that they were answerable only to the Gandhi family and would not accept any diktat from a political strategist. They said that they did not even need to participate in any such exercise.

In Varanasi, Youth Congress members came to blows in the presence of Mr Kishor and it took a great deal of intervention by other party leaders to soothe ruffled feathers.

The Kishor team, known as PK team, which is now touring the various districts, is “almost shell-shocked” to find the level of factionalism in the party. In Kanpur, the Congress is divided between Sriprakash Jaiswal and Ajay Kapoor. In Barabanki, the division is between P.L. Punia and Beni Prasad Varma and in Varanasi, the war is between Rajesh Misra and Rajeshpati Tripathi. In Sultanpur, the family feud in the erstwhile royal household of Amethi has pitted Congress MP Sanjay Singh against his own son Anant Vikram Singh. A senior Congress leader who has interacted with the PK team said, “They were rather shocked to see the level of factionalism. One of their members said that they found only factions and no organisation in the party.”

He said that the PK team could only make an election strategy but could not create an organisational structure for the party.”

The PK team is also being looked upon as an “outsider” and are not receiving the cooperation they expected from the party workers.

Another proposal put up by Mr Kishor that all former Congress MPs from UP should contest the Assembly elections in order to make the Congress presence felt in the elections has also been turned down by the former MPs who feel it is below their dignity to “return to state politics”.

“It is clear that for our leaders, their own ‘dignity’ is greater than the dignity and future of the Congress. The truth is that since the last Lok Sabha elections, most of the MPs have not been active in their constituencies and have become disconnected with the voters. Most of them will not even be in a position to win the Assembly seats, leave alone their parliamentary seats, if they do not change their attitude,” said a party leader.