Congress intends to work on some of the proposals made by political strategist Prashant Kishor, veteran party leader P Chidambaran said, NDTV reported. He said that Kishor had “very impressive data” about elections and voting patterns.

“I don’t think that the party [Congress] has that kind of data in an understandable or retrievable form,” Chidambaram told NDTV in an interview. “His analysis of data was impressive. We intend to take action on some of the proposals.”

Chidambaram’s remarks came a day after Kishor declined to join Congress as a member of its Empowered Action Group 2024.

The group is meant to address the political challenges for the party ahead of the 2024 General Assembly elections.

The political strategist had said that the Congress needs leadership and a collective will to fix its “deep-rooted structural problems” through reforms.

During Wednesday’s interview, Chidambaram told NDTV that the deal between the Indian Political Action Committee, or IPAC, and Telangana Rashtra Samithi for the 2023 Assembly elections in the state was not a factor behind the failure of talks with Kishor. IPAC was founded by Kishor.

He also said that the “leadership issues” within the Congress party were not a part of the presentation Kishor had given to Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi and other veteran leaders.

“PK’s [Prashant Kishor]plan had nothing on the leadership issue,” Chidambaram told NDTV. “Didn’t hear of any Priyanka for [Congress] president proposal either.”

He added that the leadership issue within the Congress would be resolved by the All India Congress Committee by the end of August.

‘Wrong time for LIC IPO’

Chidambaram said that the initial public offer of Life Insurance Corporation is being floated at the wrong time, NDTV reported.

“It is a wrong time to do an IPO,” Chidambaram told NDTV. “First you cut down the size of the IPO and have also lowered the offer price. Both indicate that this is not the most propitious time to bring an IPO.”

The IPO of the Life Insurance Corporation will open on May 4 and continue till May 9, Tuhin Kant Pandey, the secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, announced earlier today. The price band will be Rs 902 to Rs 949 per equity share.

The state-owned company is likely to be listed on stock exchanges on May 17. The Union government hopes to raise Rs 21,000 crore through the public offer.

An initial public offering is a process in which private companies offer shares to the public by issuing new stocks. At the end of the IPO process, the company gets listed on the stock exchange and is allowed to raise capital from public investors.