Congress Uttar Pradesh chief Raj Babbar has ordered party workers to take down a poster that offered a Rs 5-lakh reward for handing over poll strategist Prashant Kishor to Congress workers, The Indian Express reported on Monday. Babbar noticed the poster outside the office of Rajesh Singh, a Congress worker from Ballia district, on Saturday.
Kishor is believed to have been untraceable since the UP election results were declared on March 11. The Congress alliance with the Samajwadi Party lost the Assembly polls by a giant margin to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
While Babbar said it was too early to blame anyone for the party’s defeat, Singh – a secretary in the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee – said he put up the poster on behalf of “all Congressmen” who deserved answers.
“For the past one year, we have been made to work like fools…without asking any questions. We were told to work as he [Kishor] wanted us to without any ifs and buts…We did so thinking that probably it was best for the party’s revival. But now we need answers,” he told The Indian Express. “They might remove the posters, but this is what many Congress workers are thinking, and they will say the same sooner or later.”
Kishor was responsible for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections before his spat with BJP National President Amit Shah. He then switched over to the Janata Dal(United), where he helped lead the Nitish Kumar-headed grand alliance to victory. Kishor decided to work with the Congress after he was approached by politicians from across the country.
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