Later, party General secretary incharge Asha Kumari had told Indian Express that Congress was not in favour of getting Kishor on board. (File)
Two days after Capt Amarinder Singh said that poll strategist Prashant Kishor was “like his family” and was “very interested “ in designing his strategy for 2022 Punjab Assembly election”, the latter, it is learnt, has once again refused to accept the Punjab Chief Minister’s offer.
Sources close to the poll strategist told the Indian Express that while he had already refused the offer, Amarinder’s grandson Nirvan Singh visited him in Delhi on Saturday but “he was told that Kishor was not interested in taking up Amarinder’s strategy.”
The source said, “The CM was already conveyed about it. He had invited Kishor to Chandigarh also but he was told that a meeting at this juncture could not yield anything. His grandson had visited Kishor yesterday and was even made to wait for two hours to meet him. The meeting again could not yield anything.” Nirvan was not available for comments.
The CM, it is learnt, has been trying hard to get Kishor on board for the 2022 state election. Kishor’s team had earlier told Indian Express that he was not “interested” and had “told Amarinder that he would not take up Congress’s work in Punjab”.
Later, party General secretary incharge Asha Kumari had told Indian Express that Congress was not in favour of getting Kishor on board. She had called him a “mercenary” of Arvind Kejriwal. PPCC president Sunil Jakhar and Asha Kumari had even met Amarinder and expressed their reservations against signing Kishor.
Despite Kumari’s taking on Kishor, Amarinder had gone on record to say that the poll strategist was like his family member and he was very much interested in taking up his strategy.
Amarinder had stated that out of 80 Congress MLAs in Punjab, 55 wanted Kishor to formulate his strategy. The disclosure had come after Kumari had stated that the former JDU leaded could be signed for helping government’s image, but not for Punjab Congress’ strategy.
A close aide of Amarinder told the Indian Express that several party leaders did not want Kishor as they are CM seat aspirants. The fact that Kishor’s strategy last time was designed around Amarinder, would not have gone down well with them.