After days of speculation and back-to-back meetings with the Congress top leadership, the deal which Prashant Kishor and the Grand Old Party were inches away to seal fell through. HT has learnt that there were primarily four reasons why the deal didn’t materialise.
1. The Congress’s sticking point was if PK gets to handle entire communications and ticket distribution, it may infringe on others’ roles. Prashant Kishor wanted to access data to decide party tickets and strategy. This demand for an absolutely free hand did not go down well with the party.
2. Prashant Kishor wanted to report directly to Sonia Gandhi, the party’s president, whereas the party wanted him to be a member of the empowered action group.
3. Prashant Kishor desired to form a coalition with regional political parties. According to reports, PK wanted to lead alliance-formation talks with KCR, Jagan, and Mamata because he believed defeating Modi required it. However, the Congress believed that such deals could jeopardise the party’s grassroots revival in various states.
4. PK wanted to concentrate on the Lok Sabha election in 2024, but the Congress insisted that he concentrate on the state assembly elections this year and next year.
Prashant Kishor’s closeness with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi as I-Pac, the firm founded by him, will now be working with the TRS might also be another factor for Congress’s unwillingness. TRS working president KT Rama Rao has recently commented that Congress is a redundant institution.
