Poll strategist Prashant Kishor will not join the Congress, party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala announced on Twitter. This comes amid strong buzz over the pollster joining the party that is desperate to return to power in 2024.
“Following a presentation & discussions with Sh. Prashant Kishor, Congress President, has constituted an Empowered Action Group 2024 & invited him to join the party as part of the group with defined responsibility. He declined. We appreciate his efforts & suggestion given to party,” Surjewala tweeted.
“I declined the generous offer of #congress to join the party as part of the EAG & take responsibility for the elections. In my humble opinion, more than me, the party needs leadership and collective will to fix the deep-rooted structural problems through transformational reforms,” Kishor said in a tweet, minutes after Surjewala’s announcement.
Prashant Kishor met the party leadership, including interim chief Sonia Gandhi, earlier this month and presented a blueprint for the 2024 elections, sparking rumours that the master strategist will join the party as a leader to steer it out of the string of election debacles.
Sonia Gandhi, following the meeting with Kishor, set up an eight-member panel to study his recommendations and prepare a report, following which an “Empowered Action Group-2024” was formed to address the political challenges and discuss an organizational overhaul.
Prashant Kishor, during his association with I-PAC, had crafted poll campaigns for the Congress in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
The kingmaker, as he is referred to by many due to his massively successful outings with political parties, launched the “Coffee with Captain” and “Punjab da Captain”, making Amarinder Singh a household name ahead of the polls. The Congress swept to power in the state.
However, his magic didn’t work in UP; the grand old party managed to win just seven seats in 2017. PK had often blamed the party high-command for the disaster.
