Is Prashant Kishor losing his say in TMC organisational matters?

Is the role of Prashant Kishore’s team—in the process of Trinamool’s organising their party modus operandi ahead of the municipal polls—thinning down? In a meeting with party MPs on Thursday, Mamata Banerjee made it clear that she would look after the organization as well as the government in Bengal, and that her word would be final.

The state has given another significant instruction to the district presidents. The district president will prepare a list of candidates for the upcoming polls and submit it to state president Subrata Bakshi.

A senior leader of the party said that the directive means that the role of Prashant Kishore’s team in organizational work in selecting candidates is diminishing. The bigger issue is that the entire candidate list is not coming from Kolkata. District leaders will select it.

Less than a year before the Assembly polls in Bengal, the role of I-PAC, an organization of Prashant Kishore, was growing. Covid-19 was not in a bad state when I-PAC took over. It was decided that before the Assembly polls that they will do the survey work and campaign the strategy for the selection of candidates in these two elections.

Sources said that there was an agreement in advance with I-PAC for the survey and publicity of the entire poll, so they will fulfill that responsibility. Accordingly, I-PAC representatives are conducting a survey to select candidates.

However now, district presidents have been asked to submit the candidate lists. And this implies that I-PAC will not play a bigger role now.

For some time now, there has been speculation in various quarters about the rise of Abhishek Banerjee in the Trinamool. And as a result, it has become a matter of practice inside and outside the party which has made the old men unimportant. The issue has affected the organization of different districts. In this situation, Mamata, the supreme leader of the Trinamool Congress, made it clear that she would keep the organization in her own hands.

Before becoming the All India General Secretary, Abhishek Banerjee was the State and All India President of the Trinamool Youth Organization. During this time, his importance continued to grow. The role of Abhishek with Prashant Kishore in the 2021 Assembly elections was one of the topics of discussion. After Abhishek became the All India General Secretary, there were reshuffles in several district committees. Excluding the old ones, the relatively new ones are placed in various organizational positions including the district president.