West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee refused to respond to a question related to her political strategist Prashant Kishor’s recent comments in which he had said that BJP is going to be at the centre of India’s polity for the next few decades.
“It is better, why don’t you ask this question to him? He is a very efficient man. You can ask him the question. You are putting his question to my mouth,” Banerjee told reporters on Friday when asked to respond to Kishor’s comment.
Banerjee is in Goa, where her party is readying to contest the 2022 state assembly polls.
Kishor, while speaking at an interaction at an art gallery late on Wednesday had also said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was perhaps wrong to assume that it was only a matter of time before the ruling BJP would be voted out by the country’s voters.
“The BJP is going to be at the centre of Indian polity whether they win, whether they lose like it was for the first 40 years for the Congress. BJP is going nowhere. Once you secure 30 plus per cent votes at all India level you are not going away in a hurry. So do not ever get into this trap that people are getting angry and they will throw away Modi. Maybe they will throw away Modi but BJP is not going anywhere, you have to fight it out for next many decades,” Kishor had said.
“That is where the problem lies with Rahul Gandhi probably, he thinks that it is just a matter of time when people will throw him away. That’s not happening… Unless you examine, understand and take cognizance of his (Modi’s) strength, you will never be able to put a counter to defeat him. The problem, I see, is most people are not spending enough time to understand his strengths, to understand what is making him popular. Only if you know then you can find a counter,” he had also said.
