Deve Gowda's JDS may rope in Prashant Kishor to craft strategy on party revival

Bengaluru, Jan 30: After facing setbacks in successive polls, the JD(S)leadership is planning to hold talks with poll strategist Prashant Kishor on plans to revive the party for the future, top party sources said on Thursday.

JD(S) leader and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy is slated to hold talks with Kishor soon on organising the party for the days ahead.

"Kumaraswamy is at it...his strategy has worked out in Bihar and other places, so we can try here also," a top party leader told PTI, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Sources close to Kumaraswamy said the former chief minister has not yet held any discussions with Kishor, but they will meet very soon and the date is yet to be finalised.

"It is to discuss the strategy to build the party. Kishor is also said to have expressed keenness to meet Kumaranna (Kumaraswamy), they will meet soon," he added.

Not wishing to divulge details, JD(S) state president H K Kumaraswamy merely said there was nothing wrong in taking such help in the interest of the party. "We can take advice from such people to build and organise the party. We have already began work towards organising the party from the grassroots level, and it will get a boost after the national level meet of the party on February 10 and 11," he added.

The JD(S) that bagged only 37 seats in the 2018 assembly polls and came to power in alliance with the Congress with H D Kumaraswamy as chief minister managed to win only one seat in the state during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Party patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda was also defeated in the parliamentary polls.

The party also failed to win even a single seat during the December 2019 bypolls to 15 assembly constituencies in the state.

The Kishor-led Indian Political Action Committee (I- PAC) is currently helping the AAP in the Delhi assembly polls. The political advocacy group also helped in the electioneering campaign of Narendra Modi in 2014 when he was BJP's prime ministerial candidate.

The I-PAC has worked on a number of successful campaigns since 2014, including the one that brought JD(U) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to power in 2015.

The organisation also helped Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy win both state and Lok Sabha elections.

Kishor, who was the Janata Dal (United) national vice-president, was on Wednesday expelled from the party following a bitter fallout with its chief Nitish Kumar.