This PK may tilt scales in Jagan’s favour

Political strategist fans out 2000-member team pan AP

​Vijayawada: PK, an acronym associated with the political strategist Prashant Kishor, has moved from the boardroom to war room with a mission to promote the brand image of YS Jaganmohan Reddy, YSRC president and aspirant for Chief Minister post ahead of the 2019 general elections.

After his public appearance with Jagan on his side at the YSRC plenary held in Guntur district in the first week of July, PK fanned out his 200-member team into all the 175 Assembly constituencies with an array of assignments.

The team, comprising IIT and IIM graduates and post-graduates in the related disciplines was constituted nearly two months before the plenary, according to sources. Half the team members are from the two Telugu states and rest from the north Indian states.

Kishor, understandably, tasked himself with the job of strengthening the cadre base in the YSRC by striving to bridge the organisational gaps right from the booth, village, mandal, constituency, district and the state levels.

He made a plains peak at the plenary, “Carrying out poll studies and getting into the shoe of psephologists are not part of my immediate business. I just intend to do my best to make the organisational structure well-oiled to combat the rival in the forthcoming elections. I will do this with feedback collected from the party ranks at the grassroots level”.

This apart, sources close to him said, Kishor is keen on engaging six reputed independent agencies from different parts of the country for surveys sometime in April 2018, a year before the elections over the prospects of Jagan becoming the CM.

He further claimed to be doing the job for Jagan just for passion at the plenary. He reportedly carries out the mission with a rider, bearing the expenses required for payment of salaries to his team members, travel expenses for them and office maintenance to be borne by the YSRC. However, the deal for him remains a top secret.

As per the plan, PK’s team members are attached to the party’s each ‘front runner’ for the YSRC ticket in each Assembly constituency. Kishor is said to be averse to naming the prospective candidates with the tag of “coordinator” much before the elections. Instead, he chose to replace them with “front runners”.

But the YSRC has already announced the names of candidates for the Assembly constituencies much before it tapped the services of PK. This early announcement has deprived the party of active support from an army of resourceful leaders in the respective segments in his perception.

He is seemingly focused on improving delivery mechanism so as to ensure bottom-up flow of feedback and strengthening of monitoring mechanism within the party. The YSRC is said to be not in the habit of convening the meetings of its executive and the legislature party periodically.

As a result, the party leader is denied free flow of information from down the line and the YSRC is missing the key element of involving its ranks in its functioning. As a result, sycophancy crept into the organisation at all levels. Prashant Kishor is keen to stem this rot, it is said.

Kishor was said to have shared his gut feeling over the election prospects of the YSRC with a section of top YSRC leaders recently. “I have seen the elections in Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Punjab. With the kind of brief feedback I have in AP, I am confident that Jagan has bright prospects in the next elections”.

Will it happen and will PK be a catalyst in tilting Jagan’s electoral fortunes? “Prashant Kishor is definitely an asset, if Jagan listens to him,” comments a second-line leader in the YSRC while talking to The Hans India. Strikingly to his disadvantage, Jagan is credited with little habit of hearing others.