Prashant Kishor

Prashant Kishor is an Indian political strategist and is most famously known for conceptualizing and strategizing Narendra Modi led Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 general elections and helping the party to win an absolute majority. He has been formerly associated with United Nations and he currently is the advisor to Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar on policies and program implementation. He also worked in the 2015 Bihar assembly election for Nitish Kumar and helped him to win the election. It is now reported that Kishor has been in talk with Indian National Congress for 2019 and he will be designing all the Congress party’s decision until 2019 and will help the party to give a fresh new look.

Born in 1977 in Bihar, Kishor started his career as a public health activist in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. He was later signed up by World Health Organisation for a United Nations traineeship in mid 2000s. Later in 2010, UN assigned Kishor to its aid mission in Chad where he served as head of UNICEF for social policy and planning. There he read about planning commission report on poor health and then wrote to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but he didn’t receive any reply. He then wrote to the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi and Modi was impressed by his findings and he later hired Kishor as a social sector policy advisor. He then worked on the 2012 Gujarat Assembly election for Modi and helped him in winning the election. Later in 2013, Kishor then conceptualized            Citizens for Accountable Governance and drew in elite young professionals of IITs and IIMs. He then worked as the political strategist for Narendra Modi led BJP in the 2014 general elections. He was one of the most important people in Modi’s team in driving strategies for months before 2014 elections and it was his idea to make Modi present himself as a VikasPurush and helped him in shredding his image of an aggressive Hindu Right wing leader. He then helped the party in winning the 2014 elections and later in 2015, he along with his CAG members started working for Nitish Kumar for the 2015 assembly elections of Bihar. He helped Nitish Kumar in data analytics, branding and communication strategies. After Nitish Kumar broke their alliance with BJP, Kishor’s role became much more important as a victory could catapult Kumar as a possible national figure around whom all non-BJP, non-Congress parties could coalesce. He helped Nitish in winning the elections and forming the government in Bihar without BJP and during the election campaign, Kishor also played key interlocutor between Nitish and RJD boss Lalu Prasad.Kishor was then hired by the Indian National Congress to fight the crucial state elections of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh to be held in 2017. He will be with the Indian National Congress until the 2019 general elections and he is also reported to directly report to Rahul Gandhi. Kishor is now likely to be designing the Congress campaign strategy in every state election until 2019, except the ones to be held in April-May. Every state election until 2019, whether the Congress wins or loses them, will be used by Kishor and his team to give the Congress party a fresh new look, that of a resurgent party.

He is married to Jahnavi Das who is a medical doctor from Guwahati, Assam and they have a son