Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has confirmed The Quint’s 11 December report about a possible tie up between the Aam Aadmi Party and Prashant Kishor’s political consultancy firm, I-PAC.
Earlier this week, The Quint had reported that Kejriwal’s re-election campaign in Delhi was on course to be coordinated by Kishor’s firm.
“The top leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party is currently in talks with I-PAC, with a final decision expected within the coming 10 days,” a well-placed source familiar with the proceedings had confirmed to The Quint on 11 December.
With the Delhi Assembly election likely to be held in the first half of February 2020, this will be I-PAC’s shortest campaign yet. Kishor and his team will have a little over one-and-a-half months to aid Kejriwal’s efforts to return to power for a third stint as chief minister.
Speaking to the media, Kishore commented on his position as the Vice President of JD(U) and said that he will speak further after meeting Nitish Kumar.
I-PAC is also currently working on the Trinamool Congress’ re-election campaign for the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election, aiding Mamata Banerjee’s bid for a third consecutive term as the CM.
I-PAC’s Enviable Record
The only electoral campaign that I-PAC has lost so far is with the Congress in 2017’s Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, making their overall win rate five out of six. In that solitary unsuccessful campaign though, Prashant Kishor and his team were reportedly kept on the sidelines after disagreements with the Congress on how to run the campaign in UP.
- I-PAC’s inaugural poll project was to help manage the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign in 2014, and with the party becoming the first to get a simple majority in the House in three decades, it was quite the impressive debut.
- Next, they turned to Bihar in 2015, ensuring that Nitish Kumar returned as chief minister on the back of a massive victory by the JD(U)-RJD-Congress mahagathbandhan. I-PAC had helped trounce the BJP, the party they had been working for just a year ago.
- For the 2017 Assembly polls, they teamed up with the Congress in UP and Punjab, but only the latter campaign proved successful.
- In the two years since, they worked for Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRC in Andhra Pradesh, catapulting him to the CM’s post in 2019, winning 22 out of the state’s 25 Lok Sabha seats, and decimating principal rivals TDP.
- I-PAC also worked on Shiv Sena’s campaign for the 2019 Maharashtra election. Sena emerged as the second-largest party, and eventually went on to form the government with the NCP and Congress. With Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray taking on the mantle of chief minister, this campaign too can be considered to be a victory for Kishor’s political consultancy.
Punjab 2017: When I-PAC’s Cong Campaign Challenged AAP’s Bid for Power
I-PAC and AAP were on opposing sides in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, with the political consultancy coordinating BJP’s campaign for Narendra Modi’s inaugural bid to power at the national level.
But a more direct face-off between I-PAC and AAP took place in the 2017 Punjab Assembly election. As Prashant Kishor and co ran the Congress’ campaign, their biggest challenger apart from the BJP-Akali combine was the Aam Aadmi Party, which had made significant inroads in the state.
Captain Amarinder Singh and the Congress won that election by a significant margin, with AAP coming a distant second.
Two and a half years later, Prashant Kishor and Arvind Kejriwal have ended up being on the same side of an election campaign for the 2020 Delhi polls.
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