Political strategist Prashant Kishor, who is managing the Congress campaign in Uttar Pradesh, has achieved his first major success — he has identified the biggest problem that the party faces and this
Political strategist Prashant Kishor, who is managing the Congress campaign in Uttar Pradesh, has achieved his first major success — he has identified the biggest problem that the party faces and this is half the battle won.
“Other parties face a crisis of leadership but the Congress in UP faces a crisis of workers because every worker is a leader here. Another factor is that Congressmen do not accept the leadership of anyone other than the Gandhi family and this strangulates the organisational power and functioning. Mr Kishor has understood this problem and is working on it,” the senior party leader disclosed.
Mr Kishor is slowly pushing the party into an election mode and will be touring the Assembly constituencies in eastern UP from April 26.
The Congress is also preparing to release its first list of candidates in June which will be major deviation from the usual party practice of announcing candidates at the last minute.
“Mr Kishor will be touring the constituencies in eastern UP for a reality check. He will verify whether the list of 32 party workers sought by him from each Assembly segment is authentic or not. Mr Kishor had underlined the fact that he wants a list of ‘workers’ — workers who are not clamouring for tickets and who are ready to work for the official candidate,” the leader disclosed. Mr Kishor will also be holding meetings with Congress leaders in Lucknow on April 20 and 21. “Mr Kishor will basically be holding meetings with leaders from frontal organisations and suggest how they can help the parent party in t he elections,” said UPCC president Nirmal Khatri.
According to sources, another problem that the party faces is that its top leaders, including former Union ministers, prefer to hang around in Delhi rather than connect with workers and voters in Uttar Pradesh.
“That is why Mr Kishor has compiled a list of ‘workers’ in every constituency and will be directly interacting with them. This time, the ‘top’ party leaders may actually have no role to play in the party campaign unless they want to whole-heartedly involve themselves in party work,” the leader added.
Mr Kishor, during his previous interaction with UPCC leaders, has already clarified that they should “ignore” the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party and focus on their attack on the BJP. He said that this would position the Congress as the main challenger to the BJP in the state.
A senior party functionary said, “The biggest advantage of having Prashant Kishor as a strategist is that he has no interest in the party as such and does not want a post or a ticket for his aides. He can see ground realities and report back directly to the party high command — something which our own leaders rarely do and this could help the party in a big way.”
