During the Lok Sabha election campaigning in 2014, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said Narendra Modi would never be Prime Minister of India in this 21st century, and if Modi wants to sell tea, they would help him open a tea stall. His derogatory remarks prompted the BJP’s campaign team to latch it up and kick off a campaign pitch — “Chai Pe Charcha, with Narendra Modi’ an exercise which resonated with voters. This was credited as one of the strong pillars of the BJP’s campaign and it is said that it was strategized by Prashant Kishor and his team.
In 2013, Prashant Kishor, along with a few colleagues, founded a media and campaign company called Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) to help prepare for the 2014 general elections. This political entity, CAG later evolved into the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC). But later, on Kishore and BJP parted ways.
Nonetheless, politics essentially remains a game of strategies and tactics, and political parties are known to collaborate with private players in efforts to formulate election strategies. Today’s article incorporates information about some of these private election management organizations that work behind the scenes to figure out winning strategies for the BJP.
Association of Brilliant Minds (ABM)
After the BJP secured a landslide victory in the 2014 General elections, Prashant Kishor had a fallout with the saffron party. Afterwards, Kishore and BJP parted ways. The BJP later went on to win several state assembly elections namely Haryana, Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, and Jharkhand without the involvement of any outside strategist. However, when the BJP suffered serious losses in both the Bihar and Delhi assembly polls, it began a thorough analysis of its election strategy. At this juncture, Deepak Bhai Patel, a Gujarati businessman and Narendra Modi’s confidante, was asked to formulate a new strategy.
In late 2016, Deepak Bhai Patel founded ABM, bringing in strategists like Himanshu Singh and Sunil Kanugolu, who had previously worked with Prashant Kishor. Back then, the ABM reported directly to the BJP’s then-National President and current Union Home Minister, Amit Shah. ABM’s first major challenge was the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, where it developed a grassroots-level strategy under Amit Shah’s leadership, helping the BJP achieve a major victory in UP.
Although Sunil Kanugolu parted ways with ABM long ago and is no longer associated with the BJP, the organization remained closely linked to the party and still plays a major part in election management. In 2019, ABM came up with the “Main Bhi Chowkidar” campaign, which later became the most vital part of BJP strategy. Today, ABM functions behind the curtains of the multiple states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana.
Varahe Analytics
In the Haryana assembly elections that concluded in October this year, the majority of the political analysts had pronounced their verdict in favour of the Congress party claiming that it would pull a comfortable win, but in hindsight, we all know that the tide turned, and the BJP tasted the sweetness (pun for Jalebi jibes) of an emphatic victory. One primary factor behind this win was the work of Varahe Analytics, which changed the political winds in favour of the saffron party at the grass-roots level.
Varahe Analytics was founded by Rangesh Sridhar in 2022 and, just like ABM, it works only for the BJP. Rangesh Sridhar is a long-time associate of BJP’s organizational General Secretary, BL Santosh, who had shouldered the responsibility for BJP’s Southern India operations earlier. Varahe Analytics directly reports to BL Santosh and is entrusted with managing elections across a range of states, including in Southern India, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh.
Varahe was instrumental in the BJP’s triumphs in the 2021 Goa and Uttarakhand assembly elections. It supported the party during the 2023 Chhattisgarh elections and conducted the “Dulha Kaun Hai” campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha election. ABM and Varahe are jointly managing electoral strategy and administration in nearly half the states of India.
Jarvis Tech
While ABM and Varahe focus on grassroots strategies, Jarvis Technology & Strategy Consulting, founded by Dignaj Mogra, mainly offers technical support to the BJP. Mogra had been associated with Prashant Kishor for the BJP’s 2014 campaign before starting Jarvis. During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Jarvis Technology assisted the BJP in setting up call centers for many constituencies.
The role of Jarvis is operational: ground-level data and feedback collection process. If a rally is happening anywhere, Jarvis Technology coordinates the calls and ensures that people attend it. Jarvis processes the data it obtains from such calls and shares key findings with the BJP’s leadership. During the 2019 election campaign, Jarvis handled over 15 crore data points, cut from details of applicants and beneficiaries, in an attempt to forecast voter behavior and plan strategically. The company has contributed significantly to the expansion of BJP’s digital footprint across the country.
The three organizations, which include ABM, Varahe, and Jarvis, collaborate in the background on handling and implementing the BJP’s electoral campaigns through ground-level strategies, data analytics, and technological tools for success in the party.