From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Though senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has reservations on anointing poll strategist Prashant Kishor even while claiming no one is opposed to give him a post at the top, differences have cropped up between former Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, an AICC general secretary.
Rahul was present in the presentation given by Prashant Kishor to senior party leaders at 10 Janpath, but he was cut up on his mother and Congress President Sonia Gandhi leaving him out from a small group set up to consider Kishor’s inputs as he forthwith left abroad to register his reservation.
The group, which completed its 5-day deliberations on Kishor’s presentation on Friday and submitted a small report to Sonia Gandhi, is believed to have advised her to better induct him in the party and the party should work on his suggestions at a 3-day “Chintan Shivir,” a conclave in Udaipur from May 13, to prepare for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well as the forthcoming Assembly elections in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
The party insiders said Rahul was annoyed at Prashant suggesting that Priyanka Gandhi should be elevated as the Congress President while Rahul should be confined as head of the Congress Parliamentary Party. It were Rahul and Priyanka, who had held several round of meetings with the poll strategist last year, but Rahul later distanced from him on finding many seniors opposed to his entry in the party since they suspect he is a proxy of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who will use him to damage the Congress.
GUJARAT FALLOUT: Even before Prashant joins the Congress with divide in the Gandhis, its fallout is already felt in Gujarat where its working president Hardik Patel has threatened to quit the party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party since Prashant is trying to prop up Naresh Patel in his place as the leader of the Patidar community. The BJP will have advantage if Hardik joins it since the Patidars have sizeable votebank in the state that he commands.
Meanwhile, there was a leak of Prashant’s plan in the media on Thursday, particularly his “Nataraj model” that the Congress should adopt as the symbol of creation, protection, liberation, destruction, concealment and connection to help the party reinvent itself.
Prashant was quick to claim it is not part of his presentation but one he had given to Rahul and Priyanka last year as a revival roadmap for the party. He also denied suggesting a non-Gandhi Congress president in his current presentation. Some of those in the small group examining his presentation also denied any such suggestion to keep out the Gandhis from the party leadership.
