Will the well -known poll strategist Prashant Kishor become an asset or a liability in the upcoming West Bengal Assembly polls for the ruling Trinamool Congress? Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee engaged him to help her to perform a hat trick. She had almost decimated the Left parties and the Congress in the past decade. This time, Mamata will be up against the emerging BJP, which wants to wrest the state.
Dismayed by her party’s poor performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mamta engaged Kishor at the prompting of her nephew Abhishek Banerjee with a fabulous fee. Mamata has been grooming Abhishek as her political heir.
Prashant Kishor, known as PK, came into prominence as a successful election strategist after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Mamata chose Kishor for his record with the election victories of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (2014), Nitish Kumar in Bihar (2015), Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab (2017), Jagan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh (2019), and Arvind Kejriwal in (2019). The DMK chief M.K. Stalin has also contracted him for the upcoming Tamil Nadu polls.
Mamata believed in her fighting capacities as she overthrew the Left coalition government, which ruled Bengal for 33 years in 2011. She won the state for the second time in 2016. For the 2021 polls, she is not sure as the BJP is breathing down the TMC’s neck and deploying its top leadership in the campaign.
With Mamata’s full backing, PK’s team soon began working as a parallel organization with more powers than even the TMC functionaries. It began to develop tight control over the party and the Bengal government, ruffling many feathers in the process.
Kishor and his company I-PAC developed tight control over TMC and the Bengal government, ruffling many feathers in the process. On the advice of Kishor, Mamata has revised some of her government policies, including a ten percent’ upper caste” quota, a review of the salary structure of the state police force, primary teachers, and functionaries working at the panchayats, and many other populist schemes.
The TMC leaders are upset with Kishor’s clean up drive, as his team has assessed each constituency’s situation and has given Mamata a report to change at least 150 sitting MLAs.
Over the past few weeks, several senior and mid-level functionaries of the party have voiced their resentment publicly and privately against PK’s dominance. Mamata then asked Kishor to adopt a consensual approach and avoid ruffling feathers but soon followed the steady erosion from TMC to the BJP. The erosion began first with one or two MLAs leaving the TMC. It has gradually grown, with even senior leaders like Suvendu Adhikary, , and Dinesh Bhai Trivedi quitting the party. The Congress and the Left cannot attract those leaving because Mamata decimated them in the past ten years and left the opposition space to the BJP to occupy. One common theme among the rebels is that the domination of PK and his team over them. They claim they are not willing to take orders from ”Kishor and his boys.”
Mamata won in 2011, making use of the anger of the people against the left government. In her second term, she had evolved herself to national leader and continued to enjoy the people’s goodwill. In 2021 she has the anti-incumbency staring in her face. Will the internal troubles hamper her victory?
However, Mamata has always been a street fighter and positive in her approach. She has seen ups and downs in her political career but has never given up her fight. Her most prominent assets are her hard work, excellent booth level management, and her national stature. There is also no lack of funds for her party because the poll bonds have given her enough funds. Above all, the strong local organizers will work hard to save themselves, which could benefit TMC. If she could keep her Muslim vote bank besides wooing Hindu votes she could succeed.
But before that, Mamata has to contain the perception that the TMC has become weak. She is facing a similar situation the Congress did in 1997 before Sonia Gandhi stepped in to head the party. Whether those who are leaving are lightweights or not, the perception is Mamata is getting weakened. The floating voters might think that the TMC is a sinking boat. TMC can come back only if she checks the erosion before it becomes too late. For this, PK should prove he is an asset rather than a headache. (IPA Service)
