Poll strategist Prashant Kishor – who is working with West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee to work out a winning strategy for her party for the Assembly elections of 2021 – tweeted on Wednesday evening on the National Register for Citizens (NRC) attacking the Centre.
Kishor tweeted: “15 plus states with more than 55% of India’s population have non-BJP Chief Ministers. Wonder how many of them are consulted and are on-board for NRC in their respective states!!”
The tweet is extremely significant on a day Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in the Parliament that NRC – in the lines of Assam – will be implemented across the country. Around the same time, in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, Mamata Banerjee reiterated that under no circumstances will NRC be allowed in West Bengal.
Kishor’s tweet is not only being seen as a reflection of the political stance of the Trinamool Congress, but of the Opposition political parties in general. Kishor is also a senior leader of Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United, that is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Kishor taking up an assignment with Trinamool Congress had initially been met with some resistance within the party. However, Kishor as a political strategist has taken up assignments of many political parties, and insiders agreed that this had nothing to do with the role he played as part of the JD(U).
However, on there were also talks that Kishor has been “on a mission to regroup anti-BJP parties”, but such speculations have been on for a long time now. Since the terms between BJP and the JD(U) have been stressed from time to time, Kishor’s tweets and his role as a political strategist has often been read between the lines.
