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Vivek Agnihotri reacts to Prashant Kishor's ‘meltdown’: ‘Random data, arrogance, and…’
The interview, which has gone viral, saw Prashant Kishor in a heated exchange when questioned about his previous inaccurate electoral predictions.
Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri on Thursday offered a scathing critique of Prashant Kishor's media presence and approach after the poll strategist-turned-activist found himself embroiled in a heated exchange with journalist Karan Thapar during an interview for The Wire that has since gone viral on social media.
“Talking too much to the media will eventually ensure your downfall. First, you can’t remember all the lies you have uttered in the past,” Agnihotri posted on X.
“You can be a hero only if you are a high achiever or have logic, personal charm, and an emotional connect. PK (Prashant Kishor) has only random data, arrogance, and a big ego with only focus on me, mine, myself. It’s very easy for a clever journalist to destroy him.”
Prashant Kishor has been asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to maintain or even surpass its 2019 Lok Sabha tally in the ongoing general election.
During the interview, Kishor bristled at the reminder of his earlier inaccurate predictions of an "impending rout" of Congress in the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections and a win for the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the Telangana assembly elections. The former political consultant challenged Thapar to show a video of him predicting a Congress rout in Himachal Pradesh elections.
To be sure, Prashant Kishor, commenting on the outcome of the mega brainstorming session held by Congress in Udaipur in 2022, had said on X (formerly Twitter), “In my view, it failed to achieve anything meaningful other than prolonging the status-quo and giving some time to the #Congress leadership, at least till the impending electoral rout in Gujarat and HP!”
Social media users shared a snapshot of Prashant Kishor taking a sip of water during the interview after what they described as his "meltdown".
Vivek Agnihotri observed, “In this video, despite an egotistical anchor like KT, PK is found stammering and losing his composure because ego plus lies is a self-destructive combination. So far, PK has been playing on friendly turfs. For the first time, he played on an unfamiliar pitch. And, hence, the result.”
Drawing a comparison, Agnihotri pointed to a recent ANI podcast involving Kapil Sibal and noted that while the interviewer “started with the intention to destroy” Sibal, it was the podcaster who ended up faltering.
“This happened because Kapil Sibal was calm and wise. Also, he doesn’t give many interviews, so he had something new to say. Whereas PK chose to be in the spotlight and he was repeating his half-truths and half-lies everywhere, he was bound to get caught in his own trap,” Agnihotri said.
