Hyderabad: Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy Thursday said his Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) would retain power in Andhra Pradesh by breaking its 2019 record of winning 151 assembly and 22 Lok Sabha seats.
Reddy also took a swipe at I-PAC former head Prashant Kishor, saying the poll outcome would be far better than what the well-known political strategist could have delivered.
His remark was in response to Kishor’s 12 May prediction that the YSRCP was headed for a massive defeat and would be reduced to 51 out of the 175 assembly seats. Kishor’s statement appeared a day before polling in Andhra Pradesh in his interview with a Telugu news outlet.
Responding to Kishor’s statement that “Jagan will be shocked (on the results day) and learn his lesson”, the chief minister said, “The poll outcome would make every head in the country turn towards AP to watch our numbers.”
The YSRCP chief Thursday visited the I-PAC office at the Benz Circle in Vijayawada to thank a team of over 150 pollsters, strategists, and executives running the ruling party campaign for the last one-and-a-half years.
“It is not PK (Prashant Kishor) that matters; it is this team that matters,” said Jagan, with I-PAC head Rishi Raj Singh by his side while a gathering, most of them youngsters, applauded.
Kishor’s and I-PAC’s association with the YSRCP during the 2019 election campaign is considered by many to have been instrumental in the party’s landslide victory over the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
In April 2019, post-polling, Jagan visited the I-PAC office and expressed his gratitude to the campaigning team with Kishor and Singh on his side. Reports of Kishor’s differences with Jagan over the election action plan had surfaced by the time, but Kishor denied them as rumours spread by opponents. On results day — 23 May — Kishor sat relaxed by the side of Jagan on a sofa at the YSRCP office as the results of the massive victory poured in.
Though the YSRCP renewed its arrangement with I-PAC for the 2024 poll campaign, Kishor by then had disengaged himself from the firm he established with a few others, partly to focus on his Jan Suraaj Padyatra in his home state of Bihar.
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‘Kishor reading Naidu’s script’
In December 2023, months before the polls, Kishor met with TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu at Vijayawada, in a surprise move. On his flight to Vijayawada, Kishor had the company of TDP general secretary and Naidu’s son Lokesh and Shantanu Singh, a director at Showtime Consultancy, the election consultancy firm engaged by the TDP.
Though his hours-long, closed-door discussion with Naidu and other TDP leaders created a buzz in political circles of his possible return to poll strategising, Kishor, later speaking with ThePrint, rubbished such speculations, saying that “his meeting some politicians doesn’t mean that I am returning to poll consultancy”.
At that time, a Showtime senior manager had told ThePrint that Kishor might provide guidance or advise to I-PAC from outside. Robbin Sharma, a former director and colleague of Kishor at I-PAC, runs Showtime.
The 2021 Bengal polls were the last major election, which Kishor managed. Though Kishor has not been publicly involved with the TDP’s 2024 campaign, his comments over the past few months have been critical of Jagan, expressing doubts about whether Jagan’s performance and welfare schemes could fetch a consecutive win.
Kishor reportedly met Naidu again in March in Hyderabad, a meeting that YSRCP leaders have slammed.
State industries minister Gudivada Amarnath wondered how Kishor advised TDP to devise Super-6 guarantees (free gas cylinders, RTC bus travel for women, etc.) in its manifesto, while stating that welfare schemes would not fetch votes for the ruling party. “Kishor is trying to play a mind game with AP people, reading Naidu’s script,” he said.
Kishor had last met Jagan a year ago in May in New Delhi.
In the RTV interview uploaded Sunday, Kishor noted “a series of blunders” committed by Jagan as working against him in this election. “Jagan thinks there is no fight, and he could win all 175 seats, but Jagan is facing a major defeat, and I told him this one year ago itself,” he said in the interview.
Kishor added that “only welfare without addressing people’s aspirations has no meaning (in governance).” “The AP CM started thinking of himself as a provider or king, not a democratically elected leader. He concluded that people only need cash transfers and welfare benefits and that he need not ensure development, jobs, law and order, roads — let AP remain a state with no capital. Besides, he is not seen among the public, while also becoming inaccessible to his party leaders. Jagan’s mother and sister have turned against him, too,” he said.
“Taking people for granted has a price, and Jagan will pay a very heavy price. This time he will lose,” Kishor said, while denying that he is operating for Naidu.
He also predicted six to nine seats for the BJP in Telangana’s 17 Lok Sabha segments and a third term for Narendra Modi at the Centre.
Meanwhile, after clearance from a CBI court in Hyderabad dealing with his disproportionate assets (DA) cases, Jagan and his family is embarking on a Europe tour Friday. He will return 31 May ahead of the 4 June results.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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