Ace political strategist Prashant Kishor on Sunday suggested that Gandhi family scion Rahul Gandhi should consider stepping back if the Congress fail to get the desired results in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Known for his expertise in planning successful poll strategies for several political parties, Prashant Kishore this time also had prepared a revival plan for the opposition party but finally walked out due to the difference of opinion with the opposition parties.
Ace political strategist Prashant Kishor on Sunday suggested that Gandhi family scion Rahul Gandhi should consider stepping back if the Congress fail to get the desired results in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Known for his expertise in planning successful poll strategies for several political parties, Kishore this time also had prepared a revival plan for the opposition party but finally walked out due to the difference of opinion with the opposition parties. When asked about the conflict, Kishore said, Congress wanted an Empowered Action Group, which is not its constitutional body, to implement his plans and he did not agree with the proposal.
During an interaction with PTI, Kishore said, "This according to me is also anti-democratic," said Kishor.
Kishore further added Gandhi, for all practical purposes, was running his party and had been unable to either step aside or let somebody else steer the Congress despite his inability to deliver in the last 10 years.
"When you are doing the same work for the last 10 years without any success, then there is no harm in taking a break... You should allow someone else to do it for five years. Your mother did it," he said.
A key attribute of good leaders the world over is that they know what they lack and actively look to fill those gaps, he said.
"But it seems to Rahul Gandhi that he knows everything. Nobody can help you if you do not recognise the need for help. He believes he needs someone who can execute what he thinks is right. It is not possible," Kishor said.
Citing Gandhi's decision to resign as the Congress president following the party's drubbing in the 2019 polls, he said the Wayanad MP had then written that he would step back and let somebody else do the job. But, in effect, he has been doing contrary to what he had written, he added.
Many Congress leaders will admit privately that they cannot take any decision in the party, even about a single seat or seat sharing with alliance partners "unless they get the approval from xyz," he said, referring to their need to defer to Rahul Gandhi.
However, a section of Congress leaders also privately say the situation is in fact the opposite and Rahul Gandhi does not take decisions, which they wish he would.
Kishore said the Congress and its supporters are bigger than any individual and Gandhi should not be stubborn that it must be him who will deliver for the party despite repeated failures.
Questioning the former Congress president's contention that his party has been facing poll setbacks because institutions like the Election Commission, judiciary and the media have been compromised, he said this may be partly true but is not the complete truth.
The Congress, he noted, was reduced from 206 seats to 44 in the 2014 polls when it was in power and the BJP had little influence over various institutions.
Asked about his view on the claims that the party is in a terminal decline, Kishor refuted such a claim saying those saying so do not understand the country's politics. Such an assertion is nothing more than solganeering, he said.
"The Congress should not be merely seen as a party. The space it represents in the country can never be finished off. It is not possible. The Congress has evolved and reincarnated itself several times in its history," he said.