From consultant to Congressman

Sunil Kanugolu may have assisted the Congress with the winning strategy in Telangana, but to win the Lok Sabha elections, the party will need more than just his expertise

For the Congress, winning Telangana was easy. The hard part starts now. First the election past. Above and beyond all the analysis, one or two factors that contributed to the electoral victory need to be noted. Y S Sharmila, who launched her version of the YSR Congress in Telangana, did not/was not allowed to merge her party into the Congress largely because of strong pushback from Revanth Reddy, now chief minister. Mr Reddy took this stance, in part, on the advice of the behind-the-scenes strategist, Sunil Kanugolu, who told him Ms Sharmila’s claims to seats would only hobble his chances of victory due to seat claimants from her party. He rejected the theory that Ms Sharmila’s presence would harm the Congress the most by nibbling away at the vote share.

Who is Mr Kanugolu? His peers in the strategic consulting arena in politics (and, believe me, there is such a thing. What is more, it makes money!) say, above all, he’s a “really nice guy”. Like everyone in this space, he joined Prashant Kishor (PK), saw and learnt from his mistakes, and, when he launched his own independent political consultancy after an MBA and an MS in finance and a consulting position with McKinsey, avoided these. Mr Kishor leveraged being an outsider, advising politicians how to clean up their mess on the strength of his objectivity. This gave him the additional autonomy of moving from party to party, using insider intelligence gathered in one camp to the advantage of patrons in the opposite camp. Politicians in all parties viewed him with suspicion and loathing, something that was evident in the Udaipur meeting of the Congress where PK’s advice was rejected comprehensively.

By then Mr Kanugolu — of Kannadiga-Telugu parentage, now located in Bengaluru — had already set up his outfit, and had tried to forge a relationship with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), but it did not work. He also advised the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in the Tamil Nadu election in 2016 (the party lost). At around this time, he caught the eye of Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal and Karnataka strongman D K Shivakumar. However, unlike PK, Mr Kanugolu was told if he wanted to “help” the Congress he would have to join it and give up freelancing. He is now a paid-up member of the Congress, an advisor to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, and, his peers say, he has a finger on the pulse of the people. This was reflected in the “40 per cent sarkara” sobriquet the Congress gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Assembly election that it won comprehensively. Mr Shivakumar recommended his services to Revanth Reddy, who sought Mr Kanugolu’s help. From all indications, Mr Kanugolu is here to stay, though whether his magic will help the Congress in the northern states in the Lok Sabha elections remains to be seen.

While strategising is only one part of the challenge the Congress faces (the decrepit organisational setup is the more formidable one), governance is something the party understands better. But even here, the government in Telangana is going to struggle and strain to implement the election promises. In its very first week, the Congress has laid bare before the voters the enormity of the challenge.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) lost because people punished incumbent members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs): The party repeated nearly 80 per cent of its MLAs against advice to the contrary. But of the 14 new names it fielded, 11 won. So, its programmes did not lose — its MLAs did. With around 37 per cent of the vote share, the BRS is very much in the game.

The Congress government has not said anywhere that it is going to wind up the programmes started by the BRS: The Rythu Bandhu, for instance. Instead, it has its own slate of “assistance”: Rs 2,500 monthly allowance to women, cooking-gas cylinders at Rs 500, free travel for women in state transport buses, Rs 15,000 per acre annually for farmers, and Rs 12,000 to landless agricultural labourers. In addition, the party has vowed to fill 200,000 existing vacancies within a year of forming the government, releasing a unique job calendar as part of its manifesto.

The funding challenge is evident in the White Paper laid on the floor of the Assembly earlier this week by Finance Minister Bhatti Vikramarka. This says that the state is badly strapped for finances because of its debt-servicing obligations, forced by off-Budget borrowings, commitment to mega irrigation projects with low returns, and long gestation periods. As a result, funding for education and health has suffered. This is not an excuse to not fulfil the promises made by the new government, said Revanth Reddy in the Assembly. “These facts are unpalatable to some. But I have to call a spade a spade.”

The Congress has 64 in a house of 119 MLAs. To cover its flanks, it has roped in the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) with seven MLAs by giving MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi the job of pro tem speaker of the Assembly. But with the BJP doubling its vote share, the Lok Sabha election promises to be a big challenge. To win that, the Congress government will need more than Sunil Kanugolu.