The Making of Prashant Kishor, The Election Magician

• Prashant Kishor, the brain behind the party’s election campaign, gets into the prime talk in the media following AAP’s thumping victory in the Delhi Assembly Elections which secured the party 62 out of 70 seats.
  
  
• While Prashant is touted as an election magician, the talk of the town says his strategies have created success stories for parties in state and national elections.
  
  
• In the making of this political strategist, we see some shaping influences that have helped him evolve to this stature.

AAP won the Delhi assembly elections with an overwhelming majority of 62 out of 70 seats. And everyone is talking about the man who made it happen - campaign strategist Prashant Kishor

In December last year, Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP president invited Prashant Kishor to shape his election campaign. The results proved that Kejriwal chose well.

Who is Prashant Kishor and what shaped him as a successful election strategist is an interesting story.

Kishor rose to fame after 2014 lok sabha elections when he managed Narendra Modi’s election campaign and steered it towards a historic victory.

Prashant Kishor’s background

Kishor, who was born in 1977, worked as a public health specialist at the UN, before he jumped into Indian political scene. He planned election strategies for both BJP and Congress.

His first ever major political campaign in 2011 when he helped Narendra Modi win Gujarat assembly’s elections for the third time in 2012. Nevertheless, the mission that secured him immense popularity and led him to lead BJP’s election campaign during 2014 elections. That too was a historic win for Modi. Later, Kishor moved away from Modi and initiated a political outfit called Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC).

Prashant Kishor coordinating some election campaigns so far

Nitish Kumar hired Kishor to shape the party’s strategies during 2015 Bihar assembly elections when he helped him become the state chief minister for the third time. It was said Kishor decided the resource allocation, strategies and alliances of the party.

That relationship soured in January 2020 and he was expelled from the Janata Dal (U) party. This was after he criticized Kumar, the party head’s stand in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019).

In 2017 Punjab assembly elections, Prashant Kishor helped the Congress candidate Amarinder Singh win the elections and become the CM after the party had lost two consecutive elections in the state.

He was also employed by the Congress party for UP election campaign in 2017. This time he had failed but he blamed Rahul Gandhi’s failing image for it. In 2019, Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy designated Kishor’s organization as his campaign partner and his party won 151 out of 175 seats.

On February 2020, the DMK chief M K Stalin declared that Prashant Kishor had been signed up as the election strategist for the party for assembly elections in 2021.

Political circles say that he would now focus on the Bihar and Bengal elections next.