The most premier indian poltical consulting firm I-pac has suffered a body blow with the TMC loss in west bengal. despite this the indian poltical consuting industry is not showing any signs of decline or defeat. Indian poltics are becoming more professional more data driven and I would like this sub to give thoughts. A lot of people here have a lot of thoughts about american poltical consultants what sort of simlarties or differences do you see between them and the ones you see in the article?
Posted by ewatta200
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**New Delhi:** Months after being bested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, where it suffered a significant decline in the number of seats it had won in 2014, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) saw a chance at redemption. Three assembly bypolls stared at it, including BJP state president Dilip Ghosh’s Kharagpur Sadar seat.
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It was a high-stakes prestige battle, and so then Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee roped in Prashant Kishor and his Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC).
At I-PAC then, 22-year-old Uttej Ananthula spotted a personal link in the data for the Kharagpur Sadar constituency—it had a considerable population of Telugu-speaking people.
“I went up to him (Kishor) in a discussion and told him. He said, ‘yes, I know that, but what do you plan to do about it?’ I told him we can bring in movie stars from the South,” Uttej told ThePrint.
He says that Kishor did not dismiss the idea outright, and sent him to Kharagpur. Uttej had barely been working with the I-PAC for around four months when he was picked and sent to West Bengal. The TMC went on to win the Kharagpur Sadar seat for the first time ever.
“We did a lot of ground work there. Got more Telugu leaders on board. A day after the victory, he (Kishor) called me up and said, ‘I didn’t need to tell you what to do, you figured it out yourself’,” Uttej, who later moved on to The Mavericks India, another political consultancy, recalls fondly.
For many political consultants in India, Prashant Kishor and I-PAC have been the Ivy League of political consultancy in India.
Prashant Kishor, former political strategist and founder of Jan Suraaj Party | ANI
Seven years after the 2019 bypoll victory, the political consultancy industry seems to be back in focus due to I-PAC’s operations in West Bengal.
Cut back to 2026, the TMC suffered a crushing defeat in the state that it ruled for 15 consecutive years, while in Tamil Nadu, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) also lost the polls decisively. While Kishor parted ways with the I-PAC in 2021, both parties had hired the consultancy for the polls.
Several TMC leaders have since launched an attack on the I-PAC. TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee has alleged the I-PAC had “hijacked” the party and accused it of creating divisions among leaders. Suspended TMC spokesperson Riju Dutta made similar claims about I-PAC running the party in the six months leading up to the elections. He even alleged that “I was asked to give Rs 50 lakh for a TMC ticket”.
With the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the I-PAC over alleged money laundering and financial irregularities, public scrutiny has intensified into political consultants and the role played by them as a whole, and has raised questions over funding and operations.
Following the debacle, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) has reportedly cancelled its contract with I-PAC for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh polls citing a fund-crunch.
However, while the I-PAC may be going through a credibility crisis at the moment, the political consultancy industry seems to have moved far beyond Prashant Kishor and I-PAC, with other election management moving beyond internal party departments into essential ground troupes for hire.
While positive valuation of the industry is estimated at upwards of Rs 1,500 crore per annum, Kishor himself had made headlines in 2024 when he revealed that his fee was Rs 100 crore for advising on one election.
Along with parties, individual leaders have also been engaging political consultants in the run up to elections, and several boutique firms have cropped up to cater to this demand as well.
Founder of ShowTime Consulting, Robbin Sharrma, who is one of the most prominent names in the industry now, says he finds the industry similar to the legal industry.
“In that ecosystem, you will find an advocate everywhere, but you also have the Harish Salves of the world, who come to solve a specific problem statement. Our industry is very similar. You pick a problem statement, and you have to win the election. But, every state is different, every problem is different, every challenge is different. You cannot copy paste the same solution everywhere,” he told ThePrint.
The industry, according to Sharrma, is currently “testing its limits and scope”.