Why did Prashant Kishore, who played an instrumental role in bringing the YSR Congress party to victory in the 2019 assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, fall out with party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy five years later?
What caused him to develop such animosity towards Jagan that he joined hands with the Telugu Desam Party, headed by N Chandrababu Naidu, who once described him as a “Bihari Thug?”.
Insiders who have followed Prashant Kishor’s journey over the last decade say it all comes down to power and money.
Prashant Kishore had been a mentor to I-PAC since its inception. After the West Bengal elections in 2021, he ventured into politics by launching Jan Suraj.
Sources say many of the I-PAC team members who had worked with him earlier joined Jan Suraj to support his political mission in Bihar.
Meanwhile, I-PAC, under its director Rishi Raj Singh, had already started strategizing for Jagan in Andhra Pradesh.
“Apparently, Prashant asked I-PAC to bear the salary and other expenses of his team members in Jan Suraj, but Rishi Raj Singh flatly refused. Obviously, he could not allocate the funds he was charging from Jagan Mohan Reddy for his strategy in Andhra Pradesh, as I-PAC and Jan Suraj are two different entities,” sources said.
This led to serious differences between Prashant and Rishi Raj.
Meanwhile, Jan Suraj failed to evoke any response from the people and turned out to be a flop mission. As a result, Prashant tried to return to his political strategy activities by rejoining I-PAC and regaining control over it.
He made an unsuccessful attempt to join forces with Bharat Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao and work on strategies for the Telangana assembly elections, but KCR proved to be a tougher character than Prashant. Soon, Prashant realized that he could not dictate politics in Telangana under KCR’s authority.
So, he tried to re-enter Andhra Pradesh. He met with Jagan a couple of years ago and expressed his desire to take charge of I-PAC again and lead the party strategy until the elections.
By that time, Rishi Raj Singh had gained Jagan’s complete trust and was working hard at the ground level.
So, Jagan apparently told Prashant that he didn’t want to disrupt the current system and was happy with Rishi. In a way, he bluntly told Prashant that he had no place in Andhra Pradesh anymore.
That was the last straw for Prashant. This is precisely why he started speaking negatively about the Jagan government and the chief minister personally. He even sent feelers to Chandrababu Naidu and began advising him.
He joined forces with Showtime Consulting, headed by his erstwhile colleagues Robbin Sharma and Shantanu Singh, and began working with them for Naidu.
“His only objective is to see Rishi Raj Singh fail in the Andhra Pradesh elections. Once that happens, he plans to take over I-PAC again,” sources added.