Can Sunil Kanugolu convey India’s Modi down, 10 years after serving to him win? | India Election 2024

A small crack in one of many pillars supporting the world’s largest lift-irrigation mission was the opening that Sunil Kanugolu was searching for as he shepherded the election marketing campaign of the opposition Congress social gathering within the southern Indian state of Telangana late final yr.

Up in opposition to the regional Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) social gathering whose chief Okay Chandrashekhar Rao had dominated Telangana because the state’s delivery a decade earlier, the Congress, driving on disenchantment over alleged corruption and nepotism, was polling effectively.

However Kanugolu, the in-house election mastermind of the Indian Nationwide Congress or Congress social gathering, needed one thing extra — one thing that may drive residence his social gathering’s benefit, based mostly on a mantra that’s central to his method.

“No election is ever received by logic. Feelings win elections,” the 40-year-old says usually, in keeping with a detailed confidant who requested anonymity.

In Telangana, a member of Kanugolu’s group discovered {a photograph} of the small crack within the Kaleshwaram carry irrigation mission that morphed right into a ballot technique to topple the BRS from energy.

Mock ATM machines, branded as “Kaleshwaram ATM”, have been arrange in several components of Telangana and images of Congress staff inserting faux foreign money notes into the slot — which was the chief minister’s mouth — went viral. Within the story that the Congress was telling, the mission, constructed at a staggering price of $9.8bn and being touted as a logo of Telangana pleasure, was a crumbling testomony to the BRS’ brazen corruption.

The marketing campaign was a basic instance from Kanugolu’s election technique playbook.

“I’m not a believer in combating elections with a number of, three-four-five objects. There needs to be one single narrative that you just maintain pushing and get the complete social gathering, whole ecosystem, assets at your disposal to rally round. Different points are sprinklings that you just add to speeches and stuff like that,” Kanugolu’s confidant recollects him saying.

In Telangana, that “sprinkling” included publicising welfare schemes the Congress would implement for ladies, farmers, youth, the aged and poor households if voted to energy. “Inside a couple of week there was a 3 to 9 p.c swing within the vote share on the premise of the guarantees,” a researcher with Inclusive Minds, the Bengaluru-headquartered election consultancy agency that Kanugolu runs for the Congress, informed Al Jazeera.

The Congress received a transparent majority and fashioned the federal government in Telangana.

A decade in the past, Kanugolu, a former marketing consultant with McKinsey, was a member of the group that strategised, formed and carried out Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial marketing campaign.

Now, a decade later, he is likely one of the prime political consultants within the nation and is working with the Congress to convey down PM Modi within the nationwide elections that started on April 19 with the primary part of voting, and will likely be performed in seven phases ending on June 1.

However the problem Kanugolu faces isn’t just from Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP), however his personal Congress social gathering as effectively.

The Congress social gathering has been out of energy federally for 10 years, and has simply 52 members of parliament (MPs) within the 543-member decrease home of Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha.

In Might 2022, when Kanugolu formally joined the Congress, he was inducted into an eight-member “Job Pressure-2024”. The plan was to let him lead the Congress’s campaigns in 9 states that went to polls for his or her regional governments in 2023 — after which deal with the 2024 basic elections.

However inside politics throughout the Congress derailed the state election plan and the duty power did not take off, forcing Kanugolu to slender his focus and ambition.

He’s now engaged on a plan B, focussing on 100-120 constituencies the place the Congress both has a profitable likelihood or needs to place up a struggle as a matter of status. The final employed to win India’s 2024 election battle by launching a full-frontal assault on Modi’s BJP is now busy managing 100 or so snipers and making an attempt to verify they don’t miss their targets.

“Political consultants usually are not magicians. They play an necessary however restricted function if a celebration is in good condition,” Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a New Delhi-based analysis organisation that research public opinion throughout and between elections, informed Al Jazeera.

“Is there a magician who could make the Congress win the 2024 elections? Even 50 magicians can’t make the Congress win.”

Crack group

Forward of the 2014 nationwide election, Modi, then the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, roped in public well being specialist Prashant Kishor to create a tech-savvy, data-driven election consultancy, very similar to future US President Barack Obama’s in 2008, to catapult him on to the nationwide stage.

Kishor in flip roped in Kanugolu, amongst different shiny, formidable professionals, and collectively they arrange Residents for Accountable Governance (CAG). They performed intensive surveys to grasp what motivated individuals’s voting selections, studied previous voting patterns, examined what resonated with individuals and created a marketing campaign technique for the BJP by placing Modi at its centre.

“There are solely two methods to win elections — both you make your line huge, otherwise you reduce the opposite individual’s line,” Abhimanyu Bharti, a former political marketing consultant with CAG, who now runs the web Faculty of Politics, informed Al Jazeera.

The CAG used each these methods successfully. It pulled out all of the stops to launch a strong marketing campaign to use the rising anger in opposition to the Congress’s inefficient and corrupt authorities on the centre. Hundreds of thousands of {dollars} have been spent to create Model Modi and to mission him as an ready administrator, a decisive chief who had introduced improvement, overseas funding and prosperity to his residence state of Gujarat.

A blitzkrieg of 3D vans in nearly each Lok Sabha constituency beamed Modi’s hologram picture, drawing massive crowds to take heed to him speak about his imaginative and prescient for India and promise of “achche din” (good days).

The BJP received a transparent majority and Modi turned the prime minister.

Whereas Kishor left the BJP quickly afterwards, Kanugolu stayed on. Together with others, he created the Affiliation of Billion Minds (ABM), the BJP’s in-house election machine that’s also known as “Amit Shah’s group”, after Modi’s de facto deputy and India’s residence minister.

In 2017, the BJP received in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state that sends 80 MPs to Lok Sabha. That victory was credited to ABM, led by Kanugolu. “Information evaluation, political perception, agenda-setting and media communication are his forte,” a rival political marketing consultant informed Al Jazeera on the situation of anonymity.

After helming a string of wins, Kanugolu selected to maneuver on from the BJP and arrange his personal political consultancy in Bengaluru – Mindshare Analytics, working primarily for political events in southern India.

In response to his associates and colleagues, Kanugolu maintains that he’s in opposition to the BJP’s religion-based politics — although he labored with the social gathering for a number of years and helped it consolidate its energy throughout India. However in non-public conversations, they are saying, Kanugolu acknowledges that the explanation he left Modi’s aspect was one thing extra primary.

He was bored.

If Kanugolu was not excited by the BJP, a celebration that has been on a profitable roll over the previous decade, the Congress’s struggles on this interval have been, partly, what drew him to the social gathering, his confidant stated. Kanugolu “thrives on difficult conditions,” he stated.

The self-described “backroom boy” additionally deeply covets his privateness, and doggedly avoids the press and limelight. He declined Al Jazeera’s request for a proper interview.

Al Jazeera spoke with greater than a dozen of his present and former colleagues, associates in addition to friends, to piece collectively a portrait of a person who wields important political affect however operates within the shadows.

And within the secretive world of political consultancies, the place individuals shift jobs and loyalties usually, most spoke about him solely on the situation of anonymity.

Staying incognito

Kanugolu is tall, bearded and well-built — but he usually manages to remain invisible in plain sight.

The one senior Congress chief whose {photograph} is lacking from the social gathering’s web site, he has information articles written about him that always mistakenly carry his brother’s image.

Final yr, his confidant recalled, when Kanugolu was main the Congress’s marketing campaign within the high-stake Karnataka state elections, “I used to be to satisfy him at Bengaluru’s Taj West Finish resort for lunch”.

One way or the other information bought out and a number of other aspiring candidates turned up on the inexperienced, leafy heritage resort in Karnataka’s capital.

They didn’t know what he appeared like, however they hung round, searching for him whereas Kanugolu, “a whiskey-drinker and a militant meat-eater who has not had a single vegetarian meal in 25 years”, sat together with his pal within the garden, out within the open, consuming and chatting. After which he left.

“Everybody is aware of simply primary s*** about him,” a former communication marketing consultant with Inclusive Minds informed Al Jazeera.

The marketing consultant stated the general public is aware of Kanugolu is initially from Karnataka, belongs to a backward neighborhood, Balija, “like Chiranjeevi, the Telugu actor”, however grew up in Chennai within the state of Tamil Nadu, the place he studied pc engineering. He then went to review at New York College, earlier than becoming a member of McKinsey. Individuals additionally know that he’s fluent in 5 languages — Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and English – however “listens greater than he talks.”

Not like Kishor, India’s prime political analyst who’s flamboyant, media savvy and boastful about his political predictions and campaigns, Kanugolu prefers to stay invisible and maintains that credit score for election victories should lie with the individuals, together with candidates and senior social gathering leaders whose “necks are on the road”.

Working incognito in India’s buzzing, chaotic, usually hostile electoral house has a logic of its personal. And it brings unlikely energy.

It retains the general public deal with events and their leaders, and gives the look that their recognition will not be orchestrated, however natural — a real groundswell.

Throughout elections, when money and favour fly quick, and suspicion runs deep, most election consultancies have “political intelligence” groups on the bottom, a euphemism for what a former ABM worker stated is “a tactical, SWOT unit”.

Persons are employed and planted not simply in rival camps, but in addition to keep watch over the social gathering’s personal leaders.

On this state of affairs, invisibility conveys a scarcity of political ambition that helps political leaders belief their consultants. It additionally provides a little bit of mystique.

“I feel there’s a very concerted effort to carry that kind of enigmatic persona and it’s labored effectively for him,” a researcher with Inclusive Minds stated.

That’s why, Kanugolu’s confidant stated, the strategist refused a Congress provide — made by the social gathering’s face, Rahul Gandhi, no much less — of a seat within the Rajya Sabha, the higher home of India’s parliament.

However being incognito doesn’t imply being timid.

“These administration consultants from McKinsey and others,” the rival political marketing consultant stated, “have huge egos”.

And even throughout the Congress, India’s oldest social gathering, Kanugolu is in some ways his personal boss — setting his personal purple strains.

The grasp strategist

If the crack within the pillar of the irrigation mission was Kanugolu’s eureka second in Telangana, the marketing campaign he framed for the Congress in Karnataka in 2023 confirmed an aggression that analysts say is usually lacking from the social gathering’s quiver.

Amid allegations that beneath the then-BJP authorities of the state, contractors wanted to pay 40 p.c of mission earnings as bribes, Kanugolu’s group launched a “PayCM” marketing campaign, which included posters with a QR code that appeared just like the BJP chief minister’s face.

On scanning, it redirected to an internet site that listed the alleged corruption fees in opposition to the BJP authorities. The Congress received the elections to the state, considered one of India’s financial powerhouses, and Kanugolu was made chief adviser to the chief minister, with cupboard rank.

But, late final yr, when the Congress requested Kanugolu to take cost of the final elections, he declined to take “full accountability”, saying it was too late. “It’s a must to begin combating elections the day after you lose the earlier election. That’s the way you construct a nationwide election, particularly while you’re combating somebody like Modi,” Kanugolu stated later, in keeping with his confidant.

Nonetheless, Kanugolu, who in keeping with a former colleague, operates on the “fail quick, suppose agile” motto, is enjoying a outstanding function within the marketing campaign. He has been flying to New Delhi usually, handy over “dossiers” on the perfect candidates to Rahul Gandhi, and to debate points to deal with — akin to a nationwide caste census that might win the social gathering the assist of marginalised communities‚ and traps to keep away from — akin to speaking in regards to the newly consecrated Ram Temple.

Inaugurated by Modi in January, the temple is a central pillar of the BJP’s election marketing campaign. It’s constructed on the ruins of a Sixteenth-century mosque demolished by Hindu extremist activists, and the Congress refused to attend the inauguration. Kanugolu, in keeping with his confidant, has informed Congress leaders to skirt any public dialog across the temple — which he believes is a topic that may solely profit the BJP.

Kanugolu has additionally been visiting states the place election “battle rooms” are operational. Surveys are beneath approach to gauge individuals’s temper and take a look at the affect of the Congress social gathering’s marketing campaign.

The Congress, whose financial institution accounts have been frozen since February over a delay in submitting income-tax returns, plans an enormous marketing campaign push in these constituencies nearer to polling days.

Of India’s 28 states, the Congress is in energy in solely three, of which Karnataka and Telangana have been received by Kanugolu.

Together with engaged on nationwide elections, his deal with three particular states has been slowly sharpening: Odisha within the east the place elections are being held concurrently with basic elections, and two states the place polls for the provincial authorities are scheduled for later within the yr — Maharashtra and Haryana.

Today, Kanugolu incessantly refers to the necessity to deal with particular person states to sew collectively a nationwide victory. “You must struggle nationwide elections by combating and profitable the states,” Kanugolu informed some members of his group, in keeping with the confidant.

And to have the ability to win anyplace, a celebration wants a pacesetter in whose picture its marketing campaign might be constructed. Kanugolu is aware of that effectively: He helped chisel the model that boosted Modi to energy. Now he’s making an attempt to do one thing related — but very totally different — for Rahul Gandhi.

Battle of notion

The BJP, a cash-rich social gathering with greater than 180 million major members, has social media and WhatsApp volunteers in each neighbourhood to push its marketing campaign message, which Kumar of Lokniti calls “the nationalism bouquet”.

“The development and consecration of the Ram Temple, direct profit schemes for farmers and the poor, the struggle in opposition to corruption and making India a world chief are the flowers in that bouquet,” he stated.

In response to a Lokniti survey launched final week, 62 p.c of the individuals in India are apprehensive about rising unemployment and 55 p.c are anxious in regards to the rise in corruption within the final 5 years. However Kumar says there’s a disconnect between voters’ considerations and voting patterns: Modi stays broadly common, in keeping with most polls.

In a battle of notion and persona, Modi’s picture as a decisive, incorruptible nationalist, a protector of Hindus and a world chief – a picture that Kanugolu helped construct — helps the BJP.

The notion that Rahul Gandhi, the Congress’s undeclared prime ministerial candidate whose great-grandfather, grandmother and father have been prime ministers of India, has not earned the proper to guide the Congress social gathering, however has inherited it, additionally helps Modi. The BJP and its supporters have lengthy portrayed Rahul as a “Pappu” (an mental toddler).

Now Kanugolu is engaged on altering Gandhi’s picture.

In September 2022, Rahul Gandhi set out on his 150-day Bharat Jodo Yatra (Unite India March), strolling from India’s southernmost tip close to the Indian Ocean to Kashmir within the north to protest in opposition to the BJP’s Hindu-majoritarian politics and insurance policies.

Kanugolu took cost of the Telangana and Karnataka legs, stitching collectively among the most iconic moments of that march. In the future Gandhi delivered a rousing speech in pouring rain; the following day he walked with the household of Gauri Lankesh, a journalist and a critic of right-wing extremism who was murdered outdoors her residence in 2017.

Kanugolu’s group turned all these moments and extra — Rahul Gandhi strolling in a white collared T-shirt in winter, interacting with youngsters, Muslims and Christians — into rigorously crafted pictures and poignant brief video clips with rousing music and devotional chants. They amplified these on social media.

It made the march appear to be a mass motion and altered Gandhi’s picture from being only a political opponent, to an ethical power standing in opposition to the BJP’s divisive politics.

Kanugolu has a plan to construct on that for Gandhi’s makeover. In conferences together with his group, he has spoken in regards to the politician’s “phenomenal” understanding of complicated points.

Now, he’s making an attempt to get the nation to purchase into that message.

Course correction

“You must have a powerful narrative, a reputable story to inform that ought to deal with why individuals ought to vote for you and never your rivals. When you have a narrative, individuals will vote for you,” stated Okay Nageshwar, professor, political analyst and YouTuber who has received elections in Andhra Pradesh twice as an unbiased candidate.

In a nation that has been on an accelerated rightward shift since 2014, when the BJP beneath Modi was voted to energy, many analysts imagine the 2024 election is a watershed second. Who wins, and by what kind of margin, will determine whether or not India continues down this path.

For the Congress, which considers itself the ethical custodian of India’s secular democracy, at stake is its legacy because the nationwide social gathering that helped construct a newly unbiased nation — in addition to the social gathering’s future.

And for Kanugolu, a rigorously constructed status is on the road. His value as a strategist within the battle of 2024 doesn’t simply rely on his potential to wrench victory for the Congress within the face of predicted defeat, but in addition how a lot he can dent the BJP’s claims of environment friendly governance over the ten years that they’ve been in energy.

From advertisements that query the Modi authorities’s claims that it has introduced improvement, financial prosperity and jobs, to being nimble and rethinking marketing campaign methods that aren’t working, Kanugolu is shaping the Congress social gathering’s election technique even with one hand tied.

Earlier this month, the Congress and its ally, Trinamool Congress, tried to inform a narrative in regards to the BJP’s alleged corruption. Washing machines, absolutely computerized and top-loading ones, have been rolled onto the stage on the Congress’s press convention in New Delhi to capitalise on an announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that defectors from all events, together with these dealing with felony investigations, have been welcome to affix the BJP.

Congress leaders beamed as they shoved soiled garments into washing machines and pulled out squeaky clear, white ones.

However a social media sentiment and engagement survey by Kanugolu’s group confirmed that the washing machines have been neither making individuals giggle, nor including energy to the Congress’s “Modi Washing Powder” cost.

The washing machines have since disappeared, and the Congress is again to speaking in regards to the want for a caste census. India has not revealed a census monitoring the demographic knowledge of key castes since 1931. Many consultants say this hole in data has meant that the nation’s affirmative motion insurance policies are insufficient in serving to India’s most marginalised castes, and are sometimes misguided.

A brand new caste census might, in concept, be a blueprint to repair that — estimates counsel {that a} majority of India’s 1.4 billion individuals belong to deprived castes.

Rahul Gandhi has made the necessity for a nationwide caste census a central marketing campaign plank. Such a census, he claims, will present that beneath BJP rule, the nation’s wealth, prime posts and jobs have gone solely to the higher castes, who make up simply 15-20 p.c of the full inhabitants.

In its manifesto, the Congress has promised to conduct the survey and implement schemes to right this imbalance.

“You must make them perceive what it means for them,” Kanugolu informed his group in regards to the caste census just lately. “You must make individuals really feel that they’ve been cheated, taken for a journey, that they’ve been betrayed all these years. After which change the complete factor to how their life could possibly be totally different, higher.”

Kanugolu is aware of that his social gathering’s caste narrative has been weak to date, says his confidant. Nonetheless, the Congress is hoping for an undercurrent in opposition to the BJP that swings votes in its favour and brings India’s grand outdated social gathering again to energy.

“No level brooding over what will not be in your hand,” Kanugolu informed his group just lately, in keeping with the confidant, outlining his philosophy days earlier than India’s mammoth election begins.

“Consider the long run and transfer ahead.” And maintain searching for cracks.