Prashant Kishor : Won’t Be Part Of General Elections 2019
Prashant Kishor said that he has worked enough with the leaders and wants to go back to the grassroots. He confirmed that he won’t be joining politics. Election strategist Kishor on Sunday confirmed the news of not getting involved with any political party for the 2019 general elections.
Interacting with students of Indian School of Business (ISB) here, he said for last two years he wanted to leave this domain but wanted to leave his organization I-PAC in safe hands before taking the decision. “I will not be part of the 2019 election campaign in the manner and form seen for last 4-5 years,” he said.
The 41-year-old said he wants to go back to grassroots either in Gujarat or Bihar. Rumors had earlier surfaced that Prashant will be joining BJP for the upcoming elections but I-PAC had denied any such report. Prashant had formulated election strategy for Prime Minister Modi in the 2014 elections.
He said he never met Modi after he left Prime Minister`s Office in March 2015 till last year when the PM called him when his mother was on deathbed. Since then he had been meeting and talking to Modi. He, however, ruled out working with him or drafting political strategy for BJP in the next elections.
Prashant, who also worked with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Congress party, said he took up the assignment with YSR Congress party`s Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy as he had made a commitment earlier. He claimed that Modi, Nitish and Amarinder Singh did not hire him and that money was the last criteria. He denied reports that he or his organization received huge money for working with different parties.
Kishor and I-PAC have been associated with a host of political parties over the last four years. Their journey into the Indian political strategy space started with BJP’s 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign. Later he joined hands with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the Janata Dal-United in Bihar in 2015.
Both the elections were as massive success for Kishor and I-PAC as the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance swept to power at the Centre with a brute majority. Therefore, Nitish Kumar led Mahagathbandhan, which included the JDU, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress, won by a handsome margin in the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections.
His team also teamed up with the Congress in the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections that saw Captain (retd) Amarinder Singh decimating the rival parties to give his party something to cheer following a string of electoral losses over the last few years. But Kishor’s decision to go with the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance in Uttar Pradesh ended in a humiliating rout as the BJP won more than three-fourths seats in the state.
At present I-PAC is working with the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh where the party chief Jagan Mohan Reddy is hoping to win power in the next Assembly election.
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