New Delhi: Ignoring the growing displeasure in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the JDU’s national vice president Prashant Kishor’s offer to help Mamata Banerjee’s TMC in West Bengal, Kishor’s political consultancy, IPAC (Indian Political Action Committee) has started recruitment of professionals for West Bengal. Apparently such work trumps political alliances for Kishor.
The elections in West Bengal are scheduled for April 2021. However, the BJP believes that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will disintegrate before that due to Mamata’s way of working and “growing unpopularity”, which perhaps explains the urgency on the part of Mamata Banerjee to engage Kishor.
JDU, as of now, is a part of the NDA coalition and is running the government in Bihar with the support of the BJP.
Sources familiar with the development said that IPAC is recruiting people for multiple roles including campaign management, political intelligence unit, campaign design, media management, social media, digital handling and experts on data and technology.
These new recruits, sources said, will be based in Kolkata and the IPAC is looking to recruit people from top management institutes like IIT, IIM(s) and ISB, Hyderabad. These recruits will be working in close coordination with TMC leaders in the state to counter BJP’s supreme booth level management and will also be responsible for blunting the BJP’s perceived edge in influencing the social media. It will also be focusing on countering the anti-Mamata Banerjee image that has started taking shape in the media.
As per the company’s declaration, it earned a profit of Rs 2.76 crore for the year ending 31 March 2018. The company book’s doesn’t mention Kishor as a promoter or director. However, it is a common knowledge that it is Kishor, who in the role of a “mentor”, guides IPAC and it was he who met Mamata Banerjee through her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who convinced Banerjee to use the services of Kishor and IPAC to counter an emboldened BJP in the state.
As per the latest data available, the average package that a IIM (Ahmadabad) graduate gets is Rs 24 lakh, while a graduate from ISB gets Rs 25 lakh per annum. IPAC paid Rs 17.38 crore as salary and remuneration to its staff, including the directors, in the financial year ending March 2018.
Kishor, who had moved to oblivion after the Congress’ loss in Uttar Pradesh and his falling out with party leaders in Punjab, after they stated that the party won in Punjab because of Amarinder Singh and not because of IPAC or Kishor, has had his admirers say his worth has increased after the ecent Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh. IPAC had handled the political campaign of the Jagan Reddy-led YSR Congress, which swept both the recently held Assembly and general elections in the state, as had been predicted by observers long before Kishor hitched himself to the new chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, among others.