Strategist Prashant Kishor, the man behind the winning election campaigns for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, may quit his latest assignment with the Congress if he is not given a free hand soon, reports NDTV.


After Nitish Kumar's big Bihar win in November, the Congress' Rahul Gandhi had quickly roped in Kishor to work on his party's campaigns for Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, where elections will be held early next year. However, a section in the Congress feels Kishor is an outsider and is overstepping his brief.
 

In Uttar Pradesh, sources said, Kishor's demand that a new team lead the Congress into elections 2017 has not found favour with many leaders.

Sources say Kishor wants a team that includes party stalwarts like Kamal Nath, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Sheila Dikshit. This new team, sources say, may be announced by the end of the month, but if it isn't, it will cause a further strain in ties between Kishor and the party.

There has also been a confrontation in Punjab, where the Congress' Captain Amrinder Singh accused Kishor of stepping on his turf and reminded him through a press conference that, "I run the party."

Sources say Kishor currently has the backing of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi. But the Congress also sent him a veiled warning on Monday, when spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said Kishor had been told when he was appointed that "is a strategist and will have no role in organisational matters and ticket distribution."
                                                                          
Sources close to Prashant Kishor told NDTV recently that " his relationship with the Congress is not one of pitching ideas and having them rejected or accepted...but an evolving relationship with both sides trying to figure out how to leverage best strategy for elections."

Kishor, when asked for his comments, called this "wild speculation".