Growing Gap For Mamata Banerjee, Strategist Prashant Kishor , Now PK may work for AAP in 2024 battle

Mamata Banerjee has called a meeting after a public spat between a Trinamool leader and Prashant Kishor’s group I-PAC over her social media account.

Growing tensions between Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool and political strategist Prashant Kishor’s political outfit I-PAC has prompted the West Bengal Chief Minister to call a meeting of the party’s top leaders on Saturday.

The meeting comes amid rising resentment within the Trinamool Congress against I-PAC, a group that Mr Kishor founded, and reports of a rift between Ms Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek – seen as the main liaison between the party and the savvy political consultants.

It follows a public spat between Trinamool leader Chandrima Bhattacharya and the I-PAC after she alleged that her social media accounts had been “misused” by Prashant Kishor’s team – a claim that was promptly challenged.

“A Twitter account in my name was created by I-PAC before the election. Today it posted something about ‘one person one post’ without my knowledge. I strongly protest against it,” Ms Bhattacharya was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

The I-PAC countered, “I-PAC doesn’t handle any digital properties of @AITCofficial or any of its leaders. Anyone making such claim is either uninformed or is blatantly lying. AITC should look into if and how their digital properties and/or that of their leaders are being ‘allegedly (mis)used’.”

The ‘one person, one post’ plan has been part of Abhishek Banerjee’s efforts at reorganising the party internally with the help of the I-PAC – something that has not gone down well with the old guard of the party.

An internal squabble over the campaign came to a head last week when two competing lists of candidates for the upcoming civic polls came out of the party – prompting Mamata Banerjee to take a side and back the faction perceived as the old guard.

soundbite by Ms Banerjee to journalists on Monday while on her way to Uttar Pradesh to help Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s campaign also fanned buzz about a fallout between the Trinamool chief and Abhishek Banerjee – her top lieutenant for last year’s Bengal elections.

Asked if she was going to campaign in Goa where her party is attempting a foray, she said “Somebody is doing, so I am not. I am going to other places… in greater interest” – a curious comment and an even more curious reference to Abhishek Banerjee as “somebody”.

On the sidelines of that feud, speculation has also been swirling about a growing a gap between Mamata Banerjee and Prashant Kishor with the Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika reporting a terse SMS exchange between the two

According to the newspaper, Mr Kishor sent a text message to Mamata Banerjee stating that he does not want to work for the Trinamool in Bengal, Meghalaya and Odisha to which the Chief Minister replied, ‘thank you’.

Sources close to I-PAC at the time had denied the SMS exchange, claiming there is not rift between the Chief Minister and Mr Kishor.