Recent Maharashtra election results have sparked a debate over the effectiveness of election strategists and their strategies.
Despite heavy investment in campaign tactics and strategy teams, several elections have not yielded the anticipated results.
In Andhra Pradesh, election strategist Prashant Kishor, once a key player for prominent leaders such as Stalin, Thackeray and Mamata Benerjee has faced significant setbacks later on failing in many occasions.
Kishor’s own party, Janasuraj, also performed poorly in recent Bihar bypolls, failing to secure a victory in any of the contested seats. Moreover his candidates confined to third and fourth positions in all the four constituencies they contested.
Similarly, in Telangana, Sunil Kanugolu, another strategist, has faced criticism.
While Congress achieved success in Karnataka, the same strategies have continued to replicate similar results in Telangana.
But the point is that Sunil is not the reason for the victory of Congress in Karnataka and Telangana. It is proved with the result in Haryana and Maharashtra where his same strategies failed miserably.
The bottom line is that the strategists are over-rated and they hardly show any impact on electioneering. But they tend to take the credit when the party they support gets victory.
The impact of these strategies remains a subject of debate, with many questioning the efficacy of election strategists and the influence of their methods on overall results.
On the other hand a section of media is highlighting Pawan Kalyan for bringing victory to NDA in Maharashtra. Yes, the credit is also being given to him. In fact, he campaigned briefly in a meagre six constituencies.
Apart from this Mallu Bhattivikramarka who campaigned in Jharkhand is also being given credit as JMM+ won there.
So, as someone said 'success has many fathers and failure is an orphan', everybody including Sunil Kanugolu tend to take the credit but they actually contribute either very negligible or nothing in reality.