Prashant Kishor, Kanhaiya Kumar and Jignesh Mevani likely to join Congress

News Express: In line with the PK, two other potential candidates for Congress are CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar and an independent Minister from Gujarat Jignesh Mevani. When news broke about electoral strategist Prasant Kishor meeting with Gandhis, the national political streets were full of speculation. By the time reports began suggesting he could join the ANC, the media were already speculating about what role he would play and what changes he would bring to the party. That too could be part of the visual engineering by PK, as no one can deny that he knows the media better than most in today's politics. 

 Although he has not officially joined the ANC yet, internal reports from Congress regularly suggest he is in close contact with the top leadership. Reports, however, have been very interesting this past week as new names emerge likely to join Congress. According to the PK, two such names are CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar and Gujarat Independent Member Jignesh Mevani. According to The Indian Express report today, CPI leader and former JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar met with Rahul Gandhi. 

The meeting was reportedly held to prepare the ground for his entry into the ANC, which has been marginalized by many new leaders over the past two years. Sources also suggested that Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani was also in contact with Congress leadership. During the last general election, Congress had helped Mevani by not fielding his successor in Vadgam in the Banaskantha region north of Gujarat. Let's take a look at the history of these three political leaders who are rumored to be joining Congress soon and what they will bring to the table of the old party. 

 Prashant Kishor 

PK originally came from the Rohtas district but moved to Buxar in Bihar, where he completed his high school studies. Originally trained in strategy and politics, Kishor has worked for the United Nations for eight years as a political strategist at World Politics. However, he was publicly recognized when the Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), an election campaign party he imagined, helped the Narendra Modi-led Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) party to win a majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Later, Kishor parted ways with Modi, and converted the (CAG) into an expert policy suit, the Indian Political Action Committee (PAC). In 2015, Kishor, along with other colleagues at the I-PAC, traveled to his home country to promote Nitish Kumar and JD (U )'s election voting strategy. 

PK has made a huge contribution to that strategy of the campaign with a message of 7 CM commitments, with the slogan "Nitish ke Nishchay: vikas ki guarantee" (Nishish promise: progress guaranteed). JD (U) exited the election successfully. Although Nitish nominated him as his party's vice president, the position did not last long. Kishor was suspended from the party on 29 January 2020 for criticizing party chief Nitish Kumar's decision to uphold the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019). In 2016 Kishor was hired by Congress for Punjab Assembly Elections for 2017 to help Amarinder Singh's campaign in Punjab after losing two consecutive parliamentary elections. 

Kishor is often credited with the victory of Congress in the border region. Amarinder Singh himself accepted the truth when he wrote on twitter: "As I have said many times before, PK and his team and their work have been very important to our success in the Punjab." After a congressional victory in Punjab, Kishor was arrested by the old Uttar Pradesh election party in 2017. However, Kishor and Congress lost a humiliating defeat as BJP won more than 300+ seats and Congress was able to hold only 7 seats. Kishor and the I-PAC, after the uprising of the UP, have never melted away the election elections the four are preparing for. The YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh, AAP in Delhi, and DMK in Tamil Nadu won the election with a game plan drawn by Kishor and I-PAC. 

However, what gained prominence and credibility in Kishor's name was Mamata Banerjee's TMC victory in West Bengal against BJP. In a rigged election, Kishor had challenged him to step down if the BJP skipped double points. Kishor won and the BJP managed to get only 77 seats. Despite winning the election, Kishor has announced his resignation from the election campaign. It was only after Kishor's decision that he met the Gandhi family. However, as speculation began to intensify, a few Congress leaders opposed Kishor's inclusion in the party. The final decision on the inclusion of a strategist in the party will be made by interim President Sonia Gandhi. 

Sources have suggested that Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi have supported Kishor's inclusion in the party and have begun working on his proposals. Prashant Kishor, in fact, has ideas that could change the fortunes of the Congress party, which failed to bring hardship to the BJP rival in the last election. As mentioned earlier, Kishor enjoys mastering the art of photography, and could help Congress create an image that could defeat Narendra Modi's man. He and I-PAC are tech savvy, highly experienced after holding many elections. As Kishor joins Congress, they will gain all the power of the I-PAC behind them. 

 Kanhaiya Kumar 

Former president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students ’Union (JNUSU) and National leader of the All India Students Federation (AISF), Kanhaiya Kumar currently serves as a member of the National Executive Council of the Communist Party of India. Kanhaiya was born and raised in the village of Bihat in the region of Begusarai. His mother, Meena Devi, is an Anganwadi worker. From Patna Collage of Commerce Kanhaiya involved in student politics. He Joined AISF, The student wing of CPI. After Graduation and MA in Social Science he moved to Delhi. He Joined Jawaharlal Nehru University where he didi Phd in African studies at the International School of Studies. 

 Khanhaiya came to prominence when he was arrested in 2016 on charges of sedition at an event held at the JNU campus. It was organized by JNU students to commemorate the two-year suspension of the attack on Parliament by Afzal Guru. Kumar has refused to shout any slogans against the country's integrity. After being released on bail, Kanhaiya addressed a packed hall on the JNU campus, in which he said he did not want freedom in India, but wanted freedom within India. The speech received awards from non-BJP party leaders as well as independent commentators. Congress’s Shashi Tharoor commented that it had transformed Kumar into a “national political star,” and congratulated the BJP for doing so. 

Khanhaiya has contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Begusarai with a ticket from the Communist Party of India. Defeated in the election, he cast a total of 269,976 votes and 22.03% of the vote. He won second place after being defeated by Giriraj Singh of the Baratiya Janata Party by 422,217 votes. Now after spending several years in the left-wing team, sources close to him said Khanhaiya felt tight in the CPI. He met Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday and the two have learned to talk about his entry into Congress. Khanhaiya, known for his truck burning skills, could be instrumental in the ANC's campaign in the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh and in his home state of Bihar for the 2024 general elections. Prashant Kishor, also a native of Bihar and likely to join Congress, was also present during the talks between Kanhaiya and Rahul Gandhi.

Jignesh Mevani

The lawyer, a dalit rights activist and former journalist, Jignesh Mevani is a well-known figure in national politics, although he was an independent member of the Gujarati assembly. His parents work as a government secretary and live in a densely populated area of ​​Dalit in Meghaninagar in Ahmedabad. Mevani, after graduating from English literature, went on to pursue a masters diploma in journalism and public relations. In his testimony, Mevani stated that he “saw that imagination and reality were two different things” and came to the final decision to quit his job as a journalist after viewing a Gujarati documentary on the suicide of farmers called Khedu Mora Re.

In the years that followed, Mevani worked with several activists and human rights groups on issues of peasant suicide, land reform, Dalits discrimination, and sanitation workers' rights. In 2009, Mevani had led a JSM study in the regions of Surendranagar and Ahmedabad to study the allocation of remaining state land to landless Dalits under the Gujarat Agriculture Land Ceiling Act. The findings of the study revealed that land redistribution occurred only on paper and that physical transfer of land was denied. Over the years that followed, he fought a long-running land redistribution campaign, investing 110 RTIs until 2015. Better equipped to help people in need of legal representation, Mevani graduated for the second time with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 2013, becoming an activist lawyer in Gujarat High Court. 

The activist also joined the Aam Aadmi Party in 2014 for a short time and became its spokesperson. Mevani made headlines across the country during protests in Una, where seven Dalit youths were tortured in the town of Una, Gujarat for the purpose of protecting cattle and in front of police in 2016. Mevani has announced that he will run in the by-elections for the 2017 Gujarat convention from the Vadgam region. The INC and the AAP withdrew the candidates and supported Mevani against the BJP candidate after he decided to do the same. Mevani won the election with over 18,000 votes. With Mevani's introduction to Congress, the party will find a leader in Gujarat, who is going to the polls next year, with great compassion and connection. 

The Youth Connect

With nearly 7% of Dalit's votes in government, Mevani could show a change of heart, if Hardik Patel can vote for Patidar in favor of Congress. Teens connect Following the departure of junior leaders such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sushmita Dev, Jitin Prasada and Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congress sources said the party believed the entry of Kumar and Mevani would give them momentum, at least some clever wisdom. Congress, often accused of being the most common in its operations, could use small arms to revive its BJP-winning strategy. However, it remains to be seen whether other senior ANC leaders will respond positively to the exclusion as they threaten their positions in the party.