It is now more or less confirmed that YSR Congress party headed by Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is going to hire Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) founded by political strategist Prashant Kishor for the second successive term.
A formal announcement is expected to be made by Jagan at a meeting of party functionaries at Tadepalli on Wednesday.
The chief minister has convened a meeting all senior leaders, including in-charge ministers of various districts, parliamentary and assembly constituency in-charges, district party president, regional coordinators and state party leaders to review the recently completed “Gadapa Gadapaku Prabhutvam” (government at every doorstep) programme.
Sources said Jagan would introduce I-PAC team leader Rishi Raj Singh, a founder-colleague of Prashant Kishor, to the party leaders and give them a direction as to how to work as per the strategies suggested by Singh.
The I-PAC has already struck a deal with the YSRC to work for the party’s victory in the next elections for a second successive term. Starting the second week of May, the party has started ground work for the party.
As reported in these columns, a team of I-PAC members has been working on gathering the inputs from the grassroots level over the party’s prospects in the next elections and the positive and negative aspects of the party candidates.
The team members have plunged into action to collect the feedback from the people on the implementation of welfare schemes; apart from what exactly could be done to turn the tide completely in favour of the YSRC.
Another set of the I-PAC team members is also working on the issues of media management. The team members are enquiring whether the media wings of the government are able to disseminate the information with regard to the government welfare schemes properly and whether there is any communication gap between the party and the media.
The team members are also said to be identifying the media houses which have been maintaining a neutral stand and attract such media houses with advertisement campaigns and other such benefits.
The I-PAC is also working out strategies even to attract individual media persons working in pro-TDP media houses.
Hailing from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Rishi was an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. After working for an investment banker for a couple of years, he, along with Prashant Kishor, founded a body called Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) in 2013.
The CAG worked for the campaign of Narendra Modi in 2014 elections. From 3D shows to ‘Chai pe Charcha’, all the campaigns for Modi were organised by CAG. And it was a big hit and Modi became the Prime Minister of India.
Later, Rishi and Prashant dissolved CAG after the Lok Sabha elections and floated I-PAC, which worked in Bihar elections for Nitish Kumar. They helped JD-U to win the Bihar elections.
In Andhra Pradesh, too, after Prashant Kishor, it was Rishi and his team who had done a lot of ground work and helped YSRC to win the elections in 2019. Now, Rishi will continue to work for Jagan till 2024.
Rishi has been devoted to achieving remarkable outcomes for Bihar, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, New Delhi, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu are the states where Rishi triumphed against formidable resistance.
