Priyanka Gandhi won't fool voters. Sorry, Prashant Kishor
A headline in an economic paper posed a question: Are long-serving CEOs good for the growth of a company? Now, if long-tenured CEOs have been perceived to hurt performance, it is the same with political leaders, as governance needs a right mix of experience with an infusion of fresh ideation.
Rightly or wrongly, the BJP dispensed with atrophied elders, but the Congress still clings to the dynasty as lifeline. Today, there is a distinct corporate professionalism being injected into political parties in the US and India, as is evident from campaign strategies of mainstream parties in both countries: they outsource the best brains for the best jobs.
In this nascent field, there’s now a head-hunt to hire the finest political strategists — a rare breed and in short-supply in India.
Paradigm
Applying the paradigm of corporate governance to a country, it necessitates leaders rise "bottom-up", through meritocracy. If shareholders are reluctant to entrust money to a company where the CEO is inexperienced, citizens as stakeholders of the nation too question the inexperience of dynasts.
Rahul Gandhi missed his chance at apprenticeship during the ten years of the UPA rule. Revival of the Congress in UP next year is bleak, considering it has not had a CM in the state in the past 27 years, as also in Bihar in the past 26 years, and MP for 13 years.
Now the wizard strategist, Prashant Kishor, suggests Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to be the face of the UP elections for 2017. Marketeers have a dream to sell that they may not necessarily believe in. It is Kishor’s gamble to project an untested product as a vote-catcher and throw her in the deep sea of the Hindi heartland.
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| Priyanka comes as a package deal with her (in-)famous husband who is part of the very malaise the voters have rejected. |
He, like the Congressmen, feels only the alternate scion can create a buzz in the media and motivate party workers. This is like believing the voter to be the fabled bald man being sold a comb. Also, it is political naïveté for Kishor to take on an assignment, knowing that neither of the two Gandhi siblings is ever placed at the forefront unless the party is sure of a win.
The foot-soldiers ring-fence the siblings to shield them from potential losses, but credit them as crusaders for the Food Security Bill, MNREGA, etc. Even the best ad agency can fail a good product. Priyanka’s only "brand recall" is her politically famous maiden name. In a sense of déjà vu, it reminds Indians of Lalu Prasad foisting his illiterate wife as proxy CM when he was forced to renounce his "throne".
We are done with "call of conscience" and "renunciation" as the route to the top job. We are equally done with the concept of housewife-from-backyards turning into CM. Give us a break, Mr Kishor. We, the people, need more than a homemaker to run a country striving to un-do the excesses of the last regime.
This is insulting voters’ intelligence to assume that we still behave like subjects to the heiress-apparent, who hasn’t even forayed into formal politics, as "reluctant" to join as Sonia or Rahul were. But then the Gandhis have perfected the art of reluctance and elevated renunciation to a national virtue.
Package
Besides, Priyanka comes as a package deal with her (in-) famous husband who is part of the very malaise the voters have rejected. Don’t play your last and losing card, because if it fails, it’s the ending of the end, and the surest trigger for a long-awaited split in the GOP.
Generational shifts are happening across all parties, with satrap-dynasts taking over the baton for two decades now.
Within the Congress is public clamour, but private resistance, to the scions taking the reins of power; they have no win to showcase, yet there is no heavyweight within the party to upstage them. But what can be the appeal of Priyanka who lacks any qualification or experience for the top job in UP?
First, Sonia and her clan have never looked at a "bottom-up" plan. Regardless of the fact that even Indira Gandhi had to start with the I&B ministry and work her way up, the Gandhis are not going to consider Lucknow as the route to Delhi.
It’s unthinkable for the "First Family" of Indian politics to come to Delhi via UP, despite the fact that it is India’s most populous and crucial state.
Credential
Priyanka’s credential, a well rehearsed image of her dadi (grandmother), is carrying national nostalgia a bit too far. "Chai with Modi" worked; "Coffee with Captain Amarinder Singh" in Punjab should help; but "Pepsi with Priyanka" in UP will not connect with the youth, who weren’t even born when Mrs Gandhi was around.
This is a new India with new aspirations.
The Congress has played its political joker, Rahul; the queen is growing older; but Priyanka is not the Congress’s ace, as she epitomises the very system of privileges that young India trashed in 2014 in favour of meritocracy.
Kishor had a winner on hand when he strategised for "brand Modi" in 2014, a three-term elected CM and an experienced administrator, despite the baggage of the post-Godhra Gujarat riots; a tried-and-tested product in "brand Nitish" in 2015. Priyanka is not even a "start-up" like brother Rahul.
This new assignment could well halt his Midas touch, especially if someone like Smriti Irani or Varun Gandhi enters the fray. The Gandhis would graciously downsize the goalpost for assessing Kishor’s KRA. Should he succeed at delivering a hung Assembly, as a win is a distant dream, it’s a job well done — the new normal parameter for a Congress win.
Armed with a war-chest of Rs 400 crore and a 500-strong strategy team is sound ammunition for the strategist to aim at the anti-incumbent, the SP; arrest the ascent of the BJP; and play spoiler to the BSP from getting a majority.