In a major move to strengthen the Trinamool Congress after facing a stiff challenge from the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has on election strategist Prashant Kishor who basking in the YSR Congress Party’s landslide victory in Andhra Pradesh.
Janata Dal-United (JD-U) national Vice President Prashant Kishor has been instrumental in YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s big victory in Andhra defeating TDP chief and former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu.
The YSR Congress Party stormed to power with 151 seats in 175-member Assembly.
Kishor started working with the YSRCP in 2017 with the political strategist personally holding a series of strategy sessions with Jagan Reddy and other senior party leaders.
Prashant Kishor is credited for formulating the election strategy for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 elections.
The much-vaunted “chai pe charcha” (chat over tea) and 3D hologram rallies were said to be Kishor’s brainchild.
He subsequently ran successful campaigns for JD(U) in 2015 Bihar elections and for Congress in 2017 Punjab polls.
In 2015, Prashant Kishor had received feelers from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress for plying his trade in the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections.
Kishor had quit a lucrative United Nations job in Africa in 2011 and returned to India.