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Who is Prashant Kishor?
Prashant Kishor is a political strategist and business tactician. Kishor has worked as a political strategist for BJP, INC, AAP, YSRCP , DMK and TMC. Prashant Kishor is a sought-after Indian election strategist. He came to the fore when his political campaign to help then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was successful in the 2012 Assembly Elections.Kishor initially worked with the United Nations for eight years as he was trained in public health before entering Indian politics. After the 2014 elections, he parted roads with Modi and worked with Nitish Kumar in 2015 to help him win a third term as Bihar Chief Minister in the 2015 Assembly Elections. The Congress party hired him for the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections. Kishor was appointed as an advisor of All India Trinamool Congress for the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election and as DMK strategist for Tamil Nadu elections.
Campaign for Modi
The 44-year-old strategist gained public attention when he created the election campaign group Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), which helped the Bharatiya Janata Party win the 2014 Lok Sabha election with an absolute majority.
He came up with innovative advertising campaigns for PM Modi, such as Chai pe Charcha, 3D rallies, Run for Unity, Manthan, and other social media programmes.
Post-2014 Lok Sabha elections
Post-2014, he converted CAG into Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC). Along with Bihar, Kishor and his I-PAC team worked with Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab, YSRCP's Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh.
Till now, the only time his strategy did not work has been the 2017 Uttar Pradesh election when he worked with Indian National Congress.
He was also the strategist for the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi Legislative Assembly election where the party was able to win with a majority of 62 out of 70 seats in 2020.
Currently, he's working with DMK's MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu and AITC's Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.
Joining parties
In 2018, Kishor joined Janata Dal (United) but was expelled in 2020 for criticising Nitish Kumar's supportive stand on Citizenship Amendment Act. Kishor was appointed as an advisor of All India Trinamool Congress for the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election. His astute strategy helped TMC again form the government. In the same year, DMK chief M K Stalin signed up Kishor as a party strategist for the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election, in which the party won 159 seats and Stalin was election the chief minister for the first time.
In March 2021, Kishor was appointed as the principal advisor to Amarinder Singh at a fee of Re 1 and given the status equivalent to a Cabinet Minister. The Punjab Assembly Elections are scheduled to be held in 2022.
Prashant Kishor's retirement as political strategy
Prashant Kishor's retirement as political strategy
After the win of TMC and DMK in 2021 assembly polls, Prashant Kishor declared that he was quitting as an election strategist. In an interview with some new channels, Kishor said, "I do not want to continue what I am doing. I have done enough. Time for me to take a break and do something else in life. I want to quit this space."