Kolkata: Despite speculations that poll strategist Prashant Kishor would attend the Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) Martyrs’ Day rally here Sunday, he gave it a miss.
The media had been rife with speculations that Prashant Kishor, also a senior functionary of the BJP’s alliance partner Janata Dal (United), would attend the rally.
“Prashant Kishor did not attend the rally. He was nowhere near the dias. It was media speculation (that he would attend the rally). There is not an iota of truth in it,” said a senior TMC leader.
After the Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP has made major inroads in West Bengal, winning 18 of the 42 seats, only four less than the TMC, the ruling party in West Bengal roped in Prashant Kishor last month.
Kishor had met TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee twice last month and the TMC supremo had claimed the poll strategist would be helping her party as a corporate social responsibility. It was TMC MP and Chief Minister’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee who played a key role in roping in Kishor.
According to sources in TMC and Kishor’s organisation, the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC), he would first study the ground situation across West Bengal before chalking out a strategy for the 2021 Assembly elections in the state.
“He (Kishor) and his team at the IPAC have a way of functioning. They take at least two to three months to study the ground situation. They first diagnose the problem, then decide on the medicine and the mode of treatment. After that they start the actual treatment and wait for the results,” another TMC leader informed.
PTI