I have personally covered the Congress party, their social media presence, and their leaders' stances. I have also personally studied Prashant Kishor since 2022. I have listened to and analyzed all his interviews. When he expressed interest in joining the Congress party in 2022, he presented numerous presentations and his perspectives to the Congress high command in hours-long discussions. However, things didn't work out between Congress and PK at that time. Later, he tweeted that he would not be joining Congress.

At that time, there was also media speculation that PK was demanding a high-ranking position from Congress. However, while the media discussed the issue of position and power, there was no confirmation of this.

Today, in December 2025, with 2026 on the horizon, and the Congress party striving to strengthen its organization and address issues like alleged vote rigging, social issues, caste census, and various other political matters, there is renewed discussion that Prashant Kishor, a successful strategist, has once again come into contact with Congress.

Almost 3.5 years later, there is again talk in political circles that Prashant Kishor is once again in touch with the Congress high command. In his career, Prashant Kishor has worked with Narendra Modi in 2014, Nitish Kumar in 2015, the Samajwadi Party and Congress and Captain Amarinder Singh in 2017, Jagan Mohan Reddy and Uddhav Thackeray in 2019, Arvind Kejriwal in 2020, and Mamata Banerjee in 2021.

However, on May 2, 2021, the day of the Bengal election results, he publicly announced that he was leaving this work and would take a year to find a new role. PK also said that “stability scares me,” indicating that he didn't want to settle permanently anywhere and didn't consider any place permanent. That was a little bit of his background.

Now, news has emerged from Congress sources that PK has focused his role on Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In Bihar, they had already formulated a winning strategy in 2015, but the alliance of Nitish and Lalu was enough to disrupt every equation, and the Grand Alliance emerged victorious.

Now, let's talk about Uttar Pradesh in 2017—I want to discuss this in detail. Even people within the Samajwadi Party (SP) mocked PK (Prashant Kishor). They said that PK might have conquered the whole country, but winning Uttar Pradesh wouldn't be so easy. And they were right. The SP-Congress alliance suffered a major defeat.

Did the Congress party truly follow the strategy devised by Prashant Kishor in the 2017 assembly elections? This is the crucial question of today's article.

Rahul Gandhi, while serving as the Congress Vice President, held several meetings with Prashant Kishor around February–March 2016, after which his role was finalized and PK was given the responsibility of formulating the strategy. He started a series of meetings with party officials and leaders in Uttar Pradesh for the 2017 assembly elections. He was given complete freedom in election campaign strategy, including suggesting candidate selection, rallies, and publicity.

This was the first time Kishor had worked with the Congress. In August 2016, Sonia Gandhi held a roadshow in Varanasi called “Dard-e-Banaras” (The Pain of Varanasi), after which a discussion began throughout Uttar Pradesh that the Congress would enter the UP elections with strength. From there, another discussion emerged that the Congress would try to reclaim the political ground it had lost in UP over the past 25–30 years. The very initiation of this discussion was considered a major organizational victory for the Congress. Prashant Kishor played a significant role in initiating this discussion.

After this, the slogan “27 Saal UP Behaal” (27 Years of UP's Misery) was coined, which was a direct political attack on the BJP, BSP, and SP, who had previously governed and left UP in a state of disarray. Just before this, in July, PK played a major role in making Sheila Dikshit the Congress's CM face. Congress General Secretary and then state in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad announced this at a press conference in New Delhi.

After so many stages of strategic planning, the situation developed in such a way that the Samajwadi Party (SP) began to fear that the Congress party might become strong in Uttar Pradesh. This led to attempts at an alliance between the SP and Congress, and these discussions resulted in the SP agreeing to give Congress 110 seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The slogan “27 years of misery in UP,” which was a direct attack on all parties, backfired on Congress after its alliance with the very same SP. The result was a major defeat for the SP-Congress alliance.

So now, Congress supporters should answer after reading this article: was the mistake Prashant Kishor's or Congress's?

From now on, all decisions regarding alliances and election strategies will have to be made by Congress and its high command.

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