Prashant Kishor seems to have the Midas touch. In the past decade, whoever he has worked with has tasted electoral success if the Congress-Samajwadi Party’s 2017 failure in Uttar Pradesh is treated as an exception.

Now the election strategist is back to working with the Congress, the grand old party that has seen a perpetual decline since the 1980s, coinciding first with the rise of the BJP and then its subsequent dominance in Parliament and also across various states.

Prashant Kishor’s blueprint for the 2024 national election is in the news. On Friday, sources close to him asserted that he has prepared 600 slides, and that “no one has seen the complete presentation”. But media reports are talking about its content in bits and pieces.

Reporting even the gist of 600 slides is not easy anyway. Also, today, the average attention span of an average news consumer is counted in seconds. But logical thinking suggests the idea is to work for Congress’s revival. In other words, a plan that’s needed for the party and allies to defeat the BJP.

Also Read: | Sonia to make 'attractive offer' to Prashant Kishor, who is likely to meet non-NDA CMs before joining Congress

So, is there really a plan that can achieve this goal? First, it might be worth listing a paraphrased version of what has slipped into the public domain. Prashant Kishor, also known as PK, is reported to have suggested:

Let’s address these, one by one.

With the three Gandhis holding as many crucial posts, even if the Congress president is a non-Gandhi, how will the party destroy the sense of entitlement and sycophancy and address the baggage of nepotism and corruption? Of course, “nobody has seen the complete presentation”. So, we might be alarmists.

Also Read: | Prashant Kishor asked to join Congress, presents 2024 plan at party meet: Sources

But an even more critical question is: will the Congress let itself be led by a non-Gandhi? What happened in the past may indicate what lies in the future. PK wants to address the complete disconnect between the “jaded and aged leadership” and the grassroots workers. But in today’s age of personality cults, the person leading the Congress into the 2024 polls cannot be just any other party leader.

Literature and politics are two different walks of life, but when we are talking about plots, what author Salman Rushdie says might be relevant.

“If you want to build a big car, you must put a big engine in it, the vroom-vroom factor that drives the book In any plot, one of the most essential questions is: whose story is it?”

If we see the BJP’s campaign style, a few strong planks stand out. The party targets the Congress with charges of corruption, minority appeasement and dynastic politics, besides criticism of historical events like the 1962 war with China and the imposition of a National Emergency.

From holding Jawaharlal Nehru responsible for “many ills plaguing the country” to taunting Rahul Gandhi over his “lack of vision and political seriousness”, the BJP has needed the Nehru-Gandhi family to look at the "party with a difference". Ironically, the Congress also wants to be led by the Gandhis. Unless, of course, PK prevails.

Reports around Prashant Kishor’s blueprint also seem to underline an assumption that Mamata Banerjee, K Chandrashekar Rao, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Naveen Patnaik and Arvind Kejriwal (leaders with whom the election strategist has worked successfully in the past) will join hands with the Congress to fight the BJP.

But it leaves out the likes of Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Asaduddin Owaisi, and the CPI-M. In any case, an Indian election may not simply be about arithmetic. Mahagathbandhans have lost earlier.

Reports say PK has also underscored certain voting blocs that need to be targeted as 45 per cent of votes cast or 30 crore votes are needed to win 2024. And this is where one of the main challenges might be awaiting the Congress.

In recent times, the Congress, smarting from a string of humiliating defeats, both at the Centre and in states, has discredited crores of voters who back the BJP by using collective expressions like bhakts. These are the same people that need to be won over to reverse the Congress’s electoral fortunes.

And complications are many. Since the Congress has been out of power at the Centre since 2014 and is ruling only a few states, it doesn’t have much of its own from recent times to showcase when it goes to the people for votes.

Another catch might be the proposal of sharper attacks on PM Modi. Because of his popularity, this might backfire. This, however, does not call for giving the rival a walkover. This means the Congress needs to innovate and change beyond what has not worked so far.

According to author and writing instructor James Scott Bell, two of the most crucial questions in any story blueprint are: How will the character take note of the death stakes? Who must the character become by the end of the story? The question for the Congress is: is it ready to change, and change to what?

As we conclude, one final bit from the world of plots and story blueprints: the elevator pitch. Through this device, you want to be able to explain your big idea in the time it takes an elevator to go from the lobby to the 10th floor (and Spielberg happens to be in the elevator with you), as Bell says.

We don’t know how exactly things may work out for PK and the Congress, but 600 slides may appear overwhelming to the average party worker, who has to eventually implement the vision. Unless they are writing some elitist, pointless and messy French classic.

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