NEW DELHI: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Friday said that there are reservations in the party over the entry of election strategist Prashant Kishor owing to his shifting political loyalties, but the party is open to his induction. “The Congress president will take a call on it,” he said.
After his talks with Congress fell through last year, the high-profile pollster has again submitted a plan on how to position Congress to take on BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The strategy was presented to senior Congress leaders at marathon meetings over five days at the residence of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. An inhouse panel, which was also attended once by CMs Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, and veterans like Kamal Nath, has submitted its report. Kishor is said to have met Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal again on Friday.

In an interview, Singh alluded to the inhouse scepticism about Kishor by detailing that he and his agency IPAC have worked with various political parties, like TMC in Bengal, YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh, and DMK in Tamil Nadu. “He is a political analyst and he has drawn a political roadmap. But his journey has been from one party to another, so his political or ideological commitment was not obvious. But now that he has come forward with some concrete suggestions, it is quite good,” he said.

On reservations about Kishor enrolling as a Congressman, Singh said, “Congress is such a large party that there will be some doubts, but we have an open mind… There is no resistance. People are receptive but what is being discussed is to what extent and how.”

Sources said if Kishor joins the party, he will have to stop “freelancing” as a political consultant.

Singh said there is nothing “that we did not know” that Kishor has brought to light in terms of shortcomings of Congress or the reasons for its decline, but “his analysis is impressive”.
He said Congress has been in a difficult position before, and was in power in only two states when Sonia Gandhi took over as the party chief. “It is a decline, but we have revived in the past. Nothing in politics is impregnable or there is nobody who cannot be defeated. The same was said about Atal Bihari Vajpayee that he cannot be defeated,” he said.

He also defended Rahul Gandhi as a leader, saying he is conscientious and espouses Congress values of secularism and liberalism.