My favorite topics include 'Food', 'Cinema' and 'Religious aspects' and 2021 is the year where 'Politics' and 'Economics' have joined my list of favorites. I have written quite a lot of blogs on Politics and still yet to make my debut on Economics. Reason why I started liking these two topics would mainly attribute to two personalities - Prashanth Kishore and P.T.R Palanivel Rajan respectively. I have simply admired both of them and they have kindled my interest to great extent on these topics. When I saw RJ Balaji's L.K.G there was a character who act as a political strategist and make individuals win polls and at that time I hardly knew who Prashanth Kishore was but then after knowing about him and his organization I am completely flabbergasted on the talent he brings onto the table.
Now before getting into Mr.Prashanth Kishore let us understand on the Indian political climate; BJP is literally going from strength to strength and its opposition Congress party is becoming like a villain in recent Thalaivar movies; As such India is going through a massive transformation in terms of Industrialization, Governance, Infrastructure and Corporate affairs and if results are to be believed India will soon become third biggest economy in the world. I would say two things are playing a crucial role in India's glorious run - (a) Stable government which is into its 7th year @ Centre (b) Revenue generation through GST. Stability plays a major role on governance and with BJP government on its seventh year is going from strength to strength and Mr.Modi has created something like 'Brand India'; GST is another factor which is generating huge amounts of money for both central and state governments and this is getting translated to lot of infrastructure changes across the country. Now that I gave a brief overview about Indian political scenario let me jump into Mr.Prashanth Kishore.
Who is Mr.Prashanth Kishore? What role did he play in Indian politics? What contributions did he make ? Prashanth Kishore is an Indian political strategist and tactician. He has been trained in political strategy and has eight years of experience in United Nations working as Political strategist for various international politicians. Prashanth initially created CAG (Citizens for accountable governance) and then later regrouped as I-PAC (Indian political action committee). Basically Prashanth wants to create a platform for youngsters to participate and make meaningful contribution in political affairs and governance of the country without necessarily being part of the political party. Prashanth wants to make sure there is a citizen-centric agenda and partners with politicians to conceptualize and implement the most effective methods of taking it to the public. Let me list out some of his contributions :
1) Success in helping BJP win 2012 Gujarat legislative assembly election
2) Success in helping BJP win 2014 Indian general election
3) Success in helping JD(U) win 2015 Bihar legislative assembly election
4) Success in helping INC win 2017 Punjab legislative assembly election
5) Success in helping YSRCP win 2019 Andhra pradesh legislative assembly election
2) Success in helping AAP win 2020 Delhi legislative assembly election
3) Success in helping DMK win 2021 Tamil Nadu legislative assembly election
4) Success in helping TMC win 2021 West Bengal legislative assembly election
That's just WOW ......It is incredible because he was a driving force in how political parties carried out campaigns, what electoral promises to make, how to address challenges, how to tackle opposition etc., If you look into some of the directors of I-PAC they are from premium educational institutions like IIT and what they are good is getting as much DATA as possible and mining information from the data retrieved. You need to understand the constitution, rules of the land, laws and regulations and then devise your strategies. Prashanth just marshalls his resources to come up with a perfect strategy for each individual and the results are for everyone to see but there is plenty of information being carried out in the background. DATA plays a super duper role and prashanth collects as much data as possible before getting his hands dirty. I am going to walk you through some of the fascinating tactics Prashanth deployed during political campaigns which brought him so much of laurels
[1] 'Manthan' initiative: Prashanth realized out of 130 crore indian population 62 crores + of voters were under the age of 25 and realized a huge potential for indian youth to engage in political affairs and wanted to come up with a nation wide movement to bring the youth together and that is how 'Manthan' was born - he came up with a nation wide contest for resolving top 14 issues of the nation. This initiative saw 5 lakh youth participating and presenting their idea on the roadmap of India to a spectrum of leaders across party lines. Guess what the impact was so huge that some of the things like 12 special courts for fast track delivery of cases against politicians, 1.53 trillion rupees worth of loan released for small businesses under MUDRA yojana scheme, 17000 crore budget for seperate skill development ministry were made by Prime Minister to the nation and the idea was from Manthan initiative
[2] 'Captain's Nau Nukte' initiative in Punjab: Prashanth and his team devised a campaign called 'Captain's Nau Nukte' which focuses on nine point agenda bringing back the lost glory of Punjab and he executed the campaign through a large door to door campaign led by 1500 volunteers and reaching 1.2 crore people. This initiative had huge impact in the state of Punjab as it brought 35% women reservation in government jobs, 1500 crore debt waiver to 5.6 lakh farmers and special task force to control smuggling, peddling and consumption of drugs.
[3] NAVARATNALU initiative in Andhra pradesh: AP was going through a bad phase with corruption charges and bad governance and YSR Jagan mohan reddy teamed up with Prashanth and released nine promises to people of AP. Following footsteps of his dad in 341 days, he walked more than 3648 kilometres meeting citizens directly in person to get an understanding of their problem and what would it take for his new government to resolve the problems. With over 5 lakh party workers, 90k volunteers, 70k influencers, 600 professionals getting connected through 35 online and offline campaigns, people of AP gave YSRCP a landslide victory. YSR acted swiftly on his electoral promises and NAVARATNALU was soon a reality with 55 lakh loan waiver promised to farmers, 15000 annually for every school going kid, 1.5 lakhs students promised reimbursement for accommodation etc.,
[4] KEJRIWAL KI 10 Guarantee in Delhi: Prashanth devised a strategy which consist of an extensive exercise to collect feedback on government's performance in the last 5 years through a door to door campaign reaching 35 lakh households in Delhi. Across Delhi, People were invited to townhalls with the CM and they became part of the discourse for coming up with the agenda for the next 5 years. People's voice, suggestions and feedback culminated into a 10 point agenda and once Kejriwal came to office some of the agenda items were executed like - Revolutionary education reform, Healthcare for all scheme by ensuring network oh Mohalla clinics and advanced government hospitals, 24/7 clean drinking water available to public, 7 million women has access to no cost transport etc.,
[5] DIDI 'R 10 ONGIKAR, BANGLAR GORBO MAMATA: With Congress in no form and J Jayalalitha no more BJP realized their only threat in the nation was Mamata Banerjee so they went all guns blazing and made elections in phased out approach and pulled lot of ministers from TMC to BJP. Prashanth and his team really had to work very hard to get things right as they faced stiff competition from BJP. Once again Prashanth introduced flagship campaigns to reaffirm faith in didi's leadership. Multiple citizen participatory campaigns were designed and individual concerns were addressed. Once Didi came to power 'Universal income support' that of offering 500 and 1000 per month to female heads of SC/ST community, student credit cards for limit upto 10 lakhs for all eligible students, free doorstep delivery of ration goods for 1.5 crore households, 10000/acre for 68 lakh small and medium farmers were introduced
[6] STALININ 7 URUDHIMOLIGAL: Tamil Nadu was merely remote controlled by centre and with stalwarts like Karuna and JJ out of picture state was going through a bad phase with lot of misgovernance. Upon working closely with Prashanth and his team Stalin came up with a '10 year vision document' which focused on revamping areas in seven sectors such as Agriculture, Water management, Health Urban development, Education, Rural infrastructure, Social injustice, Economy etc., Stalin also had over 500 election promises which was made fun by the entire state but close to 50% of the promises were fulfilled is the reality. Finance minister selection raised eyebrows and for the first time we saw an well educated smart youngster given Finance portfolio, opposition party were treated with dignity, Tea party was hosted by CM which were attended by politicians across party lines. With just over six months DMK has literally had a glorious run and overall functioning of the state, handling of pandemic, governance has simply been outstanding and brought heaps of praise and appreciation from all over the country.
I have just pointed out some of the things Mr.Prashanth did and he did a whole lot of things which is opening a new chapter in Indian politics. If you take a closer look almost all of his initiatives involved interacting with people to know and understand their problems from grassroot level since Prashanth believes only when you understand from close quarters you can come up with a solution. Modi's ever famous 'Chai par charcha' campaign where he had a chai and interacted with public and Stalin's Grama sabbhas before TN election to sit with people and talk to them all not just won praises but also respective elections for BJP and DMK respectively. If you look at BJP it has taken some of the boldest decisions in Citizens amendment act, decision to revoke Article 370, law related to Triple talaq, decision to make Jammu, kashmir and ladakh union territories etc., When a dynamic, young and revolutionary architect in the form of Prashanth Kishor come to the equation it augurs good for Indian Politics as it changes the grammar of how a political party should be run.
Next topic: Perspective
P.S: I wish all my readers a very happy and prosperous new year; Readership for my blog has gone ten times more and thank all of you for your time and thanks for sending me your feedback and healthy debates over Whatsapp.
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