BATTLE OF THE BRAINS

Top poll strategists are engaged in a proxy war in Andhra Pradesh

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

Is the Covid pandemic back in Andhra Pradesh? Anyone who attends the YSR Congress Party’s campaign meetings these days will definitely have this doubt, as youngsters wearing face masks are all over the place. A closer look, though, will reveal that they are the members of I-PAC (Indian Political Action Committee), a political consultancy that has been working for the YSRCP for the past five years. And the masks are not for protection against the virus but privacy shields. Apparently, many I-PAC members had faced online harassment by troll armies. And they suspect the involvement of Showtime Consulting, a firm that works for the Telugu Desam Party, as both maintain intel on each other.

Behind the battle on the electoral stage between the YSRCP and the alliance of the TDP, the BJP, and the Jana Sena party is a proxy war between the poll strategists of these parties. Prashant Kishor, the biggest name in the industry, is indirectly backing the TDP in coordination with Showtime, led by the senior poll consultant Robbin Sharrma. I-PAC is helmed by IITian Rishi Raj Singh. All three are bound by their past association with I-PAC, when they played key roles in Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s padyatra before the assembly elections in 2019. After that, Sharrma moved out to make his own company and Kishor got busy with his political aspirations. It is said that a dispute over financial matters led to Kishor completely disassociating himself with I-PAC last year.