'Country will lose a poll strategist': BJP responds to Prashant Kishor's jibe

BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party’s in-charge for West Bengal, said the country will end up losing a poll strategist after the Bengal elections, in an apparent retort to Prashant Kishor’s earlier comment that the BJP will “struggle to cross double digits” in the state, or else he will quit.

Election strategist Prashant Kishor, who has been roped in by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for engineering her Trinamool Congress’s campaign for the 2021 state assembly polls, has said the BJP will “struggle to cross double digits” in the state.

In a tweet hours after Union Home Minister Amit Shah left the state after a two-day visit, Kishor said the hype around the BJP has been “amplified by a section of supportive media”, whereas, “in reality, BJP will struggle to CROSS DOUBLE DIGITS in West Bengal.”

For all the hype AMPLIFIED by a section of supportive media, in reality BJP will struggle to CROSS DOUBLE DIGITS in #WestBengal

PS: Please save this tweet and if BJP does any better I must quit this space!

— Prashant Kishor (@PrashantKishor) December 21, 2020

“…if BJP does any better I must quit this space!” added the poll strategist who is credited for successfully engineering for several regional parties in the past, besides the BJP ahead of the 2014 parliamentary elections.

Shah’s weekend visit to West Bengal witnessed a roadshow and a public rally during which several sitting MLAs, including former minister Suvendu Adhikari, and an MP jumped to the saffron party that had made inroads into the state following 2019 general elections.

During his visit, Shah launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee government, promising to turn Bengal into ‘sonar Bangla (Bengal of gold).” He also claimed his party will win the elections with more than 200 seats of the total 294 in the state assembly.

In the run up to next year’s assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress has launched several campaigns some of which are being said to be the brainchild of Kishor. However, several Trinamool leaders had expressed discontentment with what they feel is “interference” by Kishor.

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During this run-up period, Mamata Banerjee will be holding more than 600 rallies and meetings, including one that will likely be a joint rally of anti-BJP leaders like Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, DMK chief MK Stalin and NCP head Sharad Pawar, in January.

Ahead of the 2014 general elections which saw the BJP coming to power, Kishor had campaigned for the saffron party, following which he had joined the Janata Dal (United) of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the party’s vice president. But he was expelled for “indiscipline” earlier this year.