BJP campaign turbo charges with Narendra Modi, Prashant Kishor media blitzkrieg

Prashant Kishor launches media carpet bombing with pro-BJP narrative

By Manish Anand

New Delhi, May 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has scored a half century in belting out interviews to the media in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Giving him a close company is election manager turned political activist Prashant Kishor.

Modi appears to have embarked on an ‘ashwamedh yagya’ in covering all sections of the media. Beginning from Tamil Nadu with Thanthi TV, Modi has shared his perspectives with regional and national dailies and television stations.

The prime minister has not surprised with any of his interviews as he stuck to usual narratives. The common refrain has been that his government is on course to make India a developed nation.

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Kishor’s media blitzkrieg has not raised eyebrows. The media houses have accorded him hospitality at par with Modi.

Kishor set out telling the media that the third term to Modi is a fait accompli. “The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is unstoppable,” Kishor has argued in invariably all his media interviews.

The locus standi of Kishor to give media interviews on scale of the prime minister is not explicit. He was the campaign manager of Modi’s ‘Chai pe Charcha’ in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

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Kishor has always been an election manager. He has served the interests of the BJP, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the YSR Congress, the Janata dal (United), and others.

Thus, Kishor is not a neutral voice, and conflict of interest should apply on him while he gives his views on elections. Even recently, he was rumoured to have met former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandra Babu Naidu.

Even before the Election Commission announced the poll dates for the Lok Sabha elections, Kishor had already given his verdict. The BJP will win the elections hands down, he asserted.

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Now that the fifth phase of the elections has been held, Kishor once belted out interviews to the video platforms. He asserted that the BJP’s prospects of losing seats are not in place.

“The Congress has poor strike rate record against the BJP. The same applies with the Samajwadi Party,” said Kishor in one of the interviews to argue that the BJP stays invincible on its turf.

But Kishor makes all his arguments on the basis of the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict. He laces his arguments with statistical jugglery. Ground reports are immaterial to Kishor.

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Kishor spent more than a year to nurse his nascent political outfit, the Jan Suraj Party. He could not raise an army of party workers to replicate the success of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi.

The BJP in Bihar is at crossroads. The leadership is now geriatric. Kishor may be fancying an opportunity to bargain a role for himself in Bihar from the BJP.

He will be knowing well that the leadership of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) gives no ears to him. The stock of the JD (U) is ebbing in the state politics. The BJP can help float his political balloon in Bihar.

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About The Author

Manish Anand

Manish Anand is a senior journalist with more than two decades of hardcore reporting on beats such as Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, BJP, Congress, Planning Commission, NITI Aayog, and scores of Union Ministries.

His past has been with The New Indian Express, The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle, and The Statesman.

For about 15 years, Manish was also a regular commentator and host for talks on AIR on foreign affairs.

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