Trinamool distances itself from Kishor

‘We are a political party and I-PAC is our political collaborator,’ says Derek O’Brien

In an apparent distancing between the Trinamool Congress and Prashant Kishor, founder of the political consultancy group I-PAC, senior party leader Derek O’Brien said I-PAC was a political collaborator distinct from the political party.

Mr. Kishor has been campaigning for an anti-BJP front not necessarily led by the Congress. Mr. O’ Brien said I-PAC had certain “deliverables” and had been given mandate by the Trinamool Congress to do certain specific things, which they had been doing very well.

“We are a political party and they [I-PAC] are our political collaborators,” Mr. O’ Brien told reporters in Delhi, drawing a clear binary between the two. Mr. Kishore founded the I-PAC but since the May 2021 victory of the Trinamool in West Bengal, he claims to have resigned from the organisation.