Master planner Prashant Kishor’s recipe for a stronger Congress, and possibly a wining Congress, seems to begin with a key ingredient: Elect a non-Gandhi as party president. This, according to him, could help whip up the desired result with a higher success rate.
He also suggested leaving the three important posts of UPA Chairman, Parliamentary Board Chief and General Secretary coordination for Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, respectively.
In his presentation to the Congress leadership, Kishor suggested forming of a shadow Cabinet with 20-25 experienced and new politicians and a brain trust of 10-12 SMEs and global authorities “to effectively represent the voice of the people both in Parliament and outside”. This, he said, would go a long way in countering “elected autocracy” with “collective credibility.”
The strategist said the “traditional media is heavily biased towards the ruling party” and the “current dispensation’s vast network combines the resources of government and party to maintain news stranglehold.” He also said that “timing and choice of propagation for INC is lopsided and not driven by data or science.” He suggested creating “a network of ideologically inclined digital supporters divided into 543 digital zones, each with an ecosystem of approximately five lakh digitally connected people.”
Under the title of “winning arithmetic,” he said to win the general elections 45 percent of votes cast or 30 crore votes are needed. He focused on eight key groups of population to win these votes from “core supporters:” women, farmers, youth, SC, ST, landless labourers, middle class and urban poor. The party, he suggested, should use the theme of “Gandhi, Truth, Bharosa versus Godse, Jhooth, Jhansa”. To take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said the Congress could expose “the true character and failures of Modi” and use slogans like “hanikarak Modi” and “Modi jaane wale hain.”
Kishor said the party should not give ticket or organisational posts to those facing charges of heinous crimes, and strictly implement the principle of one-man-one-post. Critiquing the “jaded and aged leadership,” he said it had “complete disconnect with the grassroots” and the party had “ceased working as a democratic organization” under them. He highlighted the sense of entitlement and sycophancy in the party and said only 23 out of 118 central leaders of the party are elected.
Yet, the Congress continues to be a “formidable political force” with 90 MPs (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and 800 MLAs in spite of the fact that it has “faced a steep fall from erstwhile hegemony.” He noted that the party stood second in 209 Parliamentary constituencies in 2019 and second also in 1,072 assembly seats in the state elections between 2016-2021.
He also pointed out at the last mass public outreach campaign. It was Rajiv Gandhi’s Bharat Yatra in 1990. The party has not undertaken any “pan-India protest or agitational campaign that has lasted for more than 24 hours since 2014,” he added.
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