Offstage politician and onstage political strategist, Prashant Kishor appeared as a guest in an English news channel a few days ago. Responding to a question by the anchor on whether he was working with Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), he said he is not associated with KCR in the same capacity as he was with other politicians in the past.
There was buzz about a collaboration between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Prashant Kishor after the latter visited the site of one of the flagship irrigation projects of the government in Telangana.
A few days after Prashant Kishor’s comments, KCR cleared the air.
“Since he has an experience in national politics and worked in 12 states, I invited him and we are working together,” said KCR during a media interaction. He went on to call Kishor his “best friend” of many years and claimed that the poll strategist works for national interest and not for money. The terms and conditions between the duo are not clear at this point, but it is a fact that both have started a journey, keeping the next general elections in mind.
With just 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, how does KCR plan to make a mark in national politics and eye an important role for himself? Why is Prashant Kishor taking interest in a party which has sent only 9 MPs in this term? The answers probably lie buried in the political past of the country.
In the run-up to the 2024 general elections, the TRS has already set a narrative in place. The party has been consistently attacking the BJP over its policies and politics. The party hopes that the anti-incumbency induced by the 10-year rule of NDA might work against the BJP.
The TRS, meanwhile, seems to be softening its stance on Congress, its principal rival in the state. Recently, KCR had said the NDA rule was worse than the UPA. A few weeks back, unexpectedly, he came to the defense of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and slammed Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of the BJP for derogatory remarks against the Gandhi scion. This is a shift from the earlier stand of the party when it was cordial towards BJP while training guns on Congress leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, who was called a “buffoon”.
With his new approach, KCR has clearly spelt out his primary enemy. He also seems to have made a noisy attempt to be respected and recognised by regional parties who are anti-BJP. KCR has relaunched his Federal Front experiment and in the process met a number of leaders of regional parties across the country. There is also a talk within the political circles that the TRS has tried to earn goodwill of some regional parties by morally supporting them in the past elections when they took on the BJP.
These developments seem to suggest that a favourable situation for KCR would be to see BJP perform badly in the upcoming elections, Congress not winning enough seats to form a government and Prashant Kishor acting as an adhesive to bind various like-minded smaller parties together into a coalition.
In 1996, Deve Gowda became a prime minister in the United Front (UF) government, stepping up from his chief minister’s seat in Karnataka. He was part of the Janata Dal which won 46 seats across the country, out of which 16 were in Karnataka. He resigned within a year and I.K. Gujral, again from Janata Dal, became the prime minister, only for one year.
Both were known as accidental prime ministers as there were more popular and powerful leaders in the race who either opted out or were not acceptable to all the stakeholders. One of them was five-time West Bengal chief minister Jyothi Basu, whose party CPI(M) had 32 MPs. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was a towering JD leader, was instrumental in the win of 22 MPs from Bihar. The folder scam case went against his elevation. During these years, G.K. Moopanar’s name cropped up for prime ministerial candidate twice. Moopanar, the founder of Tamil Manila Congress (TMC), had 20 MP seats in his kitty at that time. News reports suggested it was DMK’s M Karunanidhi who was indifferent to this proposal which cost him the opportunity to be a PM, in 1996 and 1997.
In coalition governments, being the kingmaker is sometimes more preferred to than being the king. Helming a government by walking a tightrope with the burden of expectations of dozen or so parties is no breeze. On multiple occasions, former AP CM N. Chandrababu Naidu said as the convenor of UF, he was asked to be the PM but rejected the offer. His party,TDP, had only16 MPs. As a young CM at that time, Naidu said he wanted to focus on the state. V.P. Singh was also approached but he went into hiding to avoid taking up the responsibility again. Even Deve Gowda was not keen as he later revealed in the interviews. He said he had requested the senior leaders of the alliance to reconsider their decision of choosing him as the PM.
The Congress extended external support to the UF governments and also to other coalition governments much earlier which saw the rise of Chandrashekar and Charan Singh Chaudhury as prime ministers.
The assumption is that if the BJP falls short of majority, the Congress would repeat the act and do everything possible to keep the saffron party out of power.
In case of a favourable verdict as anticipated by the regional parties, only time will tell who will grab the top post. Can the front-runner of the non-BJP and non-Congress camp, TMC founder Mamata Banerjee, rely on a trusted successor to keep her flag flying high in her bastion, West Bengal? Can first-time Tamil Nadu CM M.K. Stalin take a political gamble like Gowda in 1996? Can NCP’s Sharad Pawar volunteer for the top post in his early 80’s knowing well the challenges involved?
Regional parties might have numbers on their side in the post-poll scenario, but what about a face willing to take the plunge? KCR might not have enough numbers from his state but he has a ready-to-dive face for a key role. As a leader of a separate state mass movement, former union minister and a CM for two terms, KCR has made his intentions clear to travel north for a decisive role. Unlike the succession issue dogging a few smaller parties, TRS is led by seasoned second generation politicians from KCR’s family. His son, K.T. Rama Rao, is the working president of the party and also the IT minister. KCR’s nephew and trouble-shooter of the party, Harish Rao, is the finance minister of the state.
It is never too late or early to recall the words of Otto Von Bismarck, a 19th century German politician. “Politics is the art of the possible.”
