New Delhi: While lauding the opposition parties for coming together for a meeting in Bengaluru, former poll strategist Prashant Kishor has said that the mere act of leaders and parties sitting together will not impact public opinion unless there’s a common narrative that is acceptable to the public at large.
On Monday, 26 opposition parties met in Bengaluru to discuss a poll strategy to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing a press conference in Bihar’s Samastipur earlier in the day, Kishor said: “There will be an impact when, along with opposition leaders, thoughts also unite. When there is a narrative as well. I am not talking about the face (of a united opposition). But people’s issues should be there, narrative should be there, workers working on ground should be there and that support of people should be converted to votes.”
Kishor, who has worked with several political parties in the past, is currently on a year-long padyatra (foot march) in his home state Bihar. The Jan Suraaj (people’s good governance) yatra began on 2 October last year.
Drawing a parallel between the current attempts at an opposition unity and the opposition that ousted Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1977, Kishor said, “Many people think that in 1977, all opposition came together and defeated Indira Gandhi, but she was not defeated because of that.”
“Emergency was a major issue and there was JP’s (Jayaprakash Narayan) andolan. Had there been no emergency and had there been no JP andolan, even if all parties came together, Indira Gandhi could not have been defeated,” he added.
The former poll strategist also made references to the politics of the late 1980s and early 1990s to drive home his point. He said that in 1989, Rajiv Gandhi was dislodged from the post of prime minister following a country-wide campaign by his own defence minister, V.P. Singh, in an alleged scam in the procurement of Bofors guns.
“Under V.P. Singh, we saw that all parties came together and defeated Rajiv Gandhi’s government. But parties united later, first Bofors became an issue. There was a country-wide andolan in the name of Bofors. Public sentiment favoured the campaign.”
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Kishor has worked in the past with the BJP as a strategist during 2014 elections; with Mamata Banerjee for the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls; Captain Amarinder Singh, then with the Congress, in the 2017 Punjab elections; Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in the 2019 Andhra Pradesh election; and Arvind Kejriwal for the 2020 Delhi assembly elections, among others.
Speaking to the media Monday, he said that it was good that the opposition unity meeting was happening. “Opposition unity is a process in a democracy. It is good that it’s happening. Democracy should be strengthened.”
However, he also reminded people of a similar attempt made by the opposition ahead of the 2019 general elections. “I think electoral success is only possible when these parties have a programme which they take to the public. If they get the support of the public, it will reflect in electoral results. Otherwise even in 2019, all opposition parties came together. How does it matter?”
Though Kishor is yet to announce his own political party, he has repeatedly attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav during his ongoing padyatra.
Taking a jibe at the Bihar CM, Kishor said that in the run up to 2019 Lok Sabha elections, then Andhra Pradesh chief minister had made attempts like Nitish Kumar to unite the opposition. “Leave national elections aside, in his own state (Andhra Pradesh) Chandrababu Naidu lost badly,” he said. “Till the time there isn’t unanimity on people’s issues and no traction for those issues in public, these things wouldn’t have much impact.”
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)