‘It is virtually impossible for Congress to regain power by winning all 24 seats’.
New Delhi: Political strategist Prashant Kishor’s firm, India Political Action Committee (IPAC), will not be assisting and strategizing for the Congress in the forthcoming Madhya Pradesh by-elections that will be held for 24 seats. The date of the by-elections has still not been announced but they are likely to be conducted by mid-September.
Last month, media reports, quoting close associates of former Congress Chief Minister Kamal Nath, had emerged stating that the former CM had engaged Kishor and his team to help the Congress in regaining power in Madhya Pradesh.
Out of these 24 seats, the Congress needs to win all the seats to reach the majority mark of 116 members in the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly. The party presently has 92 MLAs. In contrast, the BJP just needs to win 9 seats to continue to be in power as it has 107 MLAs as of now.
Madhya Pradesh-based Congress sources said that things didn’t “work out” between the party and IPAC because of reluctance from Kishor’s side. “We wanted his team to work for us, especially when it comes to social media campaigning, but after the initial discussions, he (Kishor) himself ‘backed’ out,” a Congress leader from Bhopal told The Sunday Guardian.
According to IPAC sources, the general consensus among those who takes decision in the organisation was that it was virtually impossible for the Congress to regain power in view of the numerical requirements (winning on 24 of the 24 seats that are going to polls) and hence there was no point in getting involved in a losing cause. “We have a very good track record (of parties who have engaged IPAC, winning) and we knew that Congress was not going to win on all the 24 seats come what may; so we decided that there was no point in working in Madhya Pradesh for the bypolls. We are not working for them in Madhya Pradesh,” a senior employee who was a part of the Madhya Pradesh deliberations told The Sunday Guardian.