Congress holds high level meeting at Sonia Gandhi's residence, Prashant Kishor among joinees

|HT|

A high-level Congress meeting is going on at the residence of party president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday to discuss the induction of election strategist Prashant Kishor to the party - among many other crucial issues, including the recent election rout the party faced. Apart from Prashant Kishor, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, senior Congress leaders Ambika Soni, Digvijiya Singh, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ajay Maken, KC Venugopal are attending the meeting. In March, Prashant Kishor had met Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. Though there was no official word on the Prashant Kishor's meeting with Rahul and Priyanka, Saturday's meeting makes it official that the buzz around Prashant Kishor joining the party is back. Prashant Kishor was all set to join the party in 2020 but that plan did not materialise over several disagreements. According to reports, the party is roping in Prashant Kishor in its big plan for the Gujarat assembly election. Kishor is part of the plan for projecting industrialist, Leuva Patidar leader Naresh Patel as the chief ministerial candidate.

Prashant Kishor, of late, has been critical of Congress leadership. During the Lakhimpur Kheri incident last year, when Priyanka Gandhi was detained on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri, Prashant Kishor tweeted there is no quick-fix solution to the "deep-rooted problems and structural weakness of GOP".

Congress' leadership can not be the divine right of an individual, the election strategist opined. "The IDEA and SPACE that #Congress represents is vital for a strong opposition. But Congress’ leadership is not the DIVINE RIGHT of an individual especially, when the party has lost more than 90% elections in last 10 years. Let opposition leadership be decided Democratically," he had tweeted. After the assembly elections of the five states in all of which the Congress fared poorly, Prashant Kishor said the battle for India will be fought and decided in 2024. "Saheb knows this! Hence this clever attempt to create frenzy around state results to establish a decisive psychological advantage over opposition. Don’t fall or be part of this false narrative," he had tweeted.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who has given a clarion call for a united opposition minus the Congress, has recently confirmed that he is working with Prashant Kishor to bring together all parties against the BJP to fill the vacuum in the national politics.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)