Gandhis, Kishor in speaking terms again with Gujarat polls in sight

The on-again, off-again relationship between the Congress party and ideology-neutral political strategist Prashant Kishor is, well, on again. With the recent assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur comprehensively decimating the hope of an electoral revival for the crisis-ridden Congress party and simultaneously denting Kishor’s stated ambition of propping up Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress as a viable pan-India alternative to the Grand Old Party, the poll strategist and the Gandhi family have returned to explore a joint future.

Though Kishor has neither confirmed nor denied the speculation, Congress sources say he has had “a few rounds of talks” with interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi since results for the five assembly elections were announced.

Rahul, it is learnt, has also held discussions with his party’s MLAs and senior leaders from Gujarat, where polls are due at the end of this year along with Himachal Pradesh, to seek their views on whether Kishor should be roped in to handle the party’s campaign. The resumption of dialogue also comes in the backdrop of Kishor’s past client, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), recording a historic win in Punjab, where it ousted the Congress and announcing its expansion plans in states such as Gujarat, Himachal, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – all largely bipolar provinces with the BJP and the Congress being the conventional parties in the fray.

Congress sources, however, maintain that any arrangement with Kishor “will not be state-specific” and that if the IPAC chief indeed decides to work with the Congress, he must be “roped in for the long run, with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as the real goal”. This view, Congress insiders claim, is also held by Kishor, who has reportedly told the Gandhis that he is “not interested in piecemeal projects” and would prefer a “long-term relationship”.

The talks between the Gandhis and Kishor mark a remarkable turnaround in the equations the two sides shared a few months ago. The Gandhis and Kishor, as confirmed by party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in interviews during the UP poll campaign, had held several rounds of talks last year during which the possibility of Kishor joining the Congress party as a member and not merely as its strategist was discussed at length.

The talks broke down after the two sides failed to reach a consensus on the exact role that Kishor would play within the Congress party. Several senior Congress leaders, The Federal had reported at the time, were of the view that Kishor will be a “valuable asset” for the party. The leaders had, however, also cautioned the high command against vesting absolute powers in Kishor, which would allow him to dictate terms to the Gandhis or other senior leaders on organisational matters – key appointments, selection of candidates, the party’s stand on crucial political and policy matters, etc. – as this could further intensify the party’s crisis of attrition.

When the Congress-Kishor dialogue failed, the poll strategist went on a rampage against the Grand Old Party. Preferring to continue his work with the Trinamool, a party he helped return to power in Bengal early last year, Kishor went shopping for Congress leaders in poll-bound Goa as well as north-eastern states. In Goa, he was instrumental in former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro’s defection to the Trinamool while he also helped the Bengal party to win over other prominent Congress leaders such as former All India Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev, former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma, among several others.

But then, as the adage goes, there are neither permanent friends nor enemies in politics. And so, with the Congress losing in all five states and Kishor failing to deliver Goa into the Trinamool’s kitty, the two sides are back exploring a future together.

What seems to have also lent impetus to the talks between the Gandhis and Kishor now is the former’s attempt to win over an influential Gujarati businessman to its side before the assembly polls in the state. Congress sources say the party is aggressively wooing Naresh Patel, chairman of the Shri Khodaldham Trust (SKT), and the businessman has reportedly indicated to the party’s interlocutors that he would be amenable to joining the Grand Old Party if Kishor is involved in its poll strategy for the state.

Patel enjoys significant clout among Gujarat’s electorally formidable block of the Patidar community, particularly among the Leuva Patel sub-caste that is concentrated in the state’s Saurashtra region and the support of which is said to critical for any political party to win as many as 50 of Gujarat’s 182 Assembly seats.

The SKT manages the temple dedicated to Khodiyar Maa, the patron deity of the Leuva Patels that is located at Kagvad in Rajkot district’s Jetpur taluka. Besides the SKT, Patel also runs many successful business ventures, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations that have been carrying out social and cultural activities among the Patidar community.

Patel has made it known that the ruling BJP, the Congress as well as the AAP have all been reaching out to him in recent months. Earlier this month, the AAP had reportedly offered Patel one of the five Rajya Sabha seats the party was expected to win from Punjab but the businessman had told the AAP leadership that he was undecided on which political party he wished to back.

Congress sources say the party has been in regular touch with the 56-year-old ever since the 2017 Gujarat polls. “In 2017, Ashok Gehlot (the then Congress in-charge for Gujarat) had tried to get Patel into the party but things didn’t work out because of various reasons. Last year when the Congress decided to appoint Raghu Sharma (former minister in the Rajasthan government and a confidant of Gehlot), talks with Patel resumed. Other senior party leaders from the state have also been in constant touch with him. His father, Ravjibhai, was also a Congress supporter and Patel’s son also campaigned for our candidate in 2017. This time we are hopeful he will formally join the Congress and help us win the state,” a senior Gujarat Congress leader told The Federal.

Many in the Congress believe that Patel would be a bigger catch for the party in Gujarat than Kishor. Though the Congress had lost the 2017 polls to the BJP, it had managed to give the saffron party a real fright by registering its best performance in over two decades. The Congress had won 77 seats against the BJP’s 99 seats.

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The uptick in the party’s performance was seen as the result of the Congress running an uncharacteristically spirited campaign in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and benefitting from its strategic tie-ups with Patidar leader Hardik Patel, Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani (he had contested his debut assembly polls as an independent from Vadgam seat with Congress’s support) and backward caste leader Alpesh Thakor.

Hardik Patel, who is currently the Congress’s working president in Gujarat, was the face of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) that led a belligerent campaign against the BJP in the years leading up to the 2017 polls. The Congress had benefitted from the mobilisation of Patidars by Patel as well as that of the Dalits and backward castes who were visibly upset with the BJP regime.

However, in the nearly five years that have passed since, the Congress’s stock has been on the decline in Gujarat. A chunk of the party’s MLAs, including Alpesh Thakor, switched to the BJP and at least a few more are likely to don the saffron as elections draw near. The Patidar agitation of Hardik Patel has also lost much of its steam. The party’s tallest trouble-shooter for decades and veteran from Gujarat, Ahmed Patel, is no more.

The BJP, on the other hand, has been consistently trying to improve its poll prospects in the state. Last year, in a sudden move, Rupani was made to quit and first-term MLA Bhupendra Patel, a leader from the Kadva Patel sub-caste of Patidars who, like Naresh Patel, is well-networked in the social and cultural organisations that work for the Patidar community, was appointed the CM. The entire council of ministers was also changed within days in a bid to give a complete makeover to the BJP government that had, under Rupani, been drawing flak for poor performance and colossal mismanagement of the COVID pandemic.

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The Congress, party sources say, wants to revive its fortunes in the state it hasn’t won since 1995 by appealing afresh to the overarching Patidar community through the combined force of Naresh Patel and Hardik Patel while simultaneously reaching out to its traditional vote bank of the Dalits, backward castes, tribals, Kshatriyas and Muslims. In this scheme, the Congress’s Gujarat leaders feel the active participation of Kishor and Naresh Patel could be a game-changer.

The coming weeks will tell whether Kishor and Naresh Patel agree to play ball with the Congress, knowing full well that the saffron party will go to any length to keep Modi’s home state in its fold. As for Kishor, the Congress has to also be prepared for a worst-case scenario given its experience of slighting him just six months ago.

If Kishor, once Modi’s poll strategist who has recently begun waxing eloquent about the need for a strong Congress, walks away from the Gandhis jilted for a second time, he may, yet again choose another vehicle – perhaps the AAP – to destabilise the Congress just as he did by helping the Trinamool in Goa before things between him and Mamata Banerjee soured. It’s a tough call for the Congress as the party knows it by experience now that hell hath no fury like a poll strategist scorned. Perhaps this also explains why, unlike last July, the Gandhis and Kishor aren’t making a public display of their flirtations this time round.