Team News Riveting
Kolkata, September 9
More than 50 per cent of the sitting Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislators would be dropped from re-contesting the assembly polls if the party followed the suggestion of political strategist Prashant Kishor.
The TMC had hired the service of Kishor. Allegedly setting aside many senior leaders and party think tanks, Kishor had been reporting to chief minister and party chief Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and her political heir Abhishek Banerjee.
Party insiders told News Riveting that the preliminary report submitted by Kishor’s agency I-PAC had suggested replacing at least 110 of the Trinamool’s 211 sitting MLAs. Besides, a good number of district-level functionaries are also under the scanner.
Of the 110 MLAs shortlisted include a few heavyweight ministers.
Kishor, who became the biggest name in election campaign management in India after having led Modi’s 2014 Lok Sabha and Nitish’s 2015 Assembly campaigns successfully, had brought political storm in the TMC.
The surveys carried out by I-PAC have reportedly underlined that these 110 MLAs have a negative image among their constituents and if they are fielded again, they will lose their seats. The report had angered a large number of legislators and party functionaries.
Though the senior TMC leaders are tight-lipped, they are resented with the increased clout of Abhishek in the party affairs. It is he who had hired Kishor after the setback suffered by the Trinamool in the Lok Sabha elections last year.
As the TMC supremo Mamata is blindly following Kishor’s suggestion despite her getting a jolt at the onset, the party legislators and office bearers anticipate a dark political future.
To start with, Kishor had started Didi Ke Bolo campaign that enabled people to air their grievances and ask for help. Interestingly, most of the grievances received in the Didi Ke Bolo helplines were about corruption and malpractices by Trinamool functionaries.
