The poll strategist, who scripted Congress victories in Telangana and Karnataka – Firstpost

India’s youngest state, Telangana, is on the verge of a power shift. The Congress is on course for success – it won 64 seats – toppling the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

While many attribute the party’s victory to Revanth Reddy, there is another quiet force that has been working in the background to ensure that the party’s fortunes turn around in the state. This man is none other than the elusive Sunil Kanugolu, the same person responsible for turning the tide for the Congress in the previous Karnataka elections.

Let’s take a closer look at who Kanugolu is and how he helped the Congress achieve a victory in Telangana, upsetting K Chandrashekhar Rao and his party, BRS.

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Sunil Kanugolu’s Personal Life

Very little is known about Kanugolu’s personal life and this can be attributed to his nature; he is shy, introverted and prefers to stay away from the limelight.

Born in Ballari district of Karnataka, he later moved to Chennai and then to the United States for his studies. He is reported to have studied engineering as an undergraduate and then completed postgraduate degrees. He then returned to India in 2009. He worked as a consultant at McKinsey, which he could be criticized for his habit of staying out of the public eye.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs said Kanugolu served as a director in three companies – SR Independent Fisheries Private Limited, SR Naturo Foods Private Limited and Brainstorm Innovation and Research Private Limited (BSIR) – all of which ceased to exist.

He is known to stay away from the limelight, even a Congress leader said The imprint“He is as elusive as Bagheera (the black panther from Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli stories) and leaves no trace.”

However, the only known fact about Kanugolu is his love for food. His friends, according to News18 report, call him a “militant meat eater”.

From the Modi campaign to Congress victory

Kanugolu’s beginnings in political strategy began long ago when he co-founded the Association of Brilliant Minds, a company that developed political strategies for the BJP. He was also part of Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), a group brought together by renowned election strategist Prashant Kishor, to power Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign in 2014.

According to Indian Express, he worked closely with Amit Shah until February 2018 and helped the party in the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Karnataka polls. Moreover, the BJP’s victory in 2018 in the southern state was under his watchful eye.

In 2021, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul met Kanugolu and engaged the services of his company, Mindshare Analytics. In May 2022, then Congress President Sonia Gandhi appointed Kanugolu as a member of the party’s Lok Sabha 2024 election task force.

He is also credited with strategizing Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir last year.

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The Telangana Task

After being credited with leading the Congress to victory in Karnataka, he was entrusted with the uphill battle of securing Telangana for the party.

And Kanugolu, it seems, was up for the challenge; he worked tirelessly seven days a week to ensure the party’s victory in the state. A News18 reports that he realized that a larger vote share for the BJP would help Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao stay in power and therefore initially tried to limit the BJP’s influence in the state .

He also managed to persuade YSR’s daughter YS Sharmila not to contest elections in the state. Sharmila, driven by revenge, realized the value of his argument and decided to withdraw from the elections in order to dethrone KCR.

A MSN The report said that it was Kanugolu’s team that was responsible for including five safeguards, known as ‘Abhaya Hastam’, which were specifically tailored to Telangana’s needs.

Media reports also report that Kanugolu’s idea was to portray the BRS as having a tacit alliance with the BJP, in order to polarize voters and win them over to the Congress. Interestingly, this is the same tactic he used in Karnataka, where the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) was branded as the B-team of the BJP.

Speaking about the victory in Telangana, a senior official in Kanugolu’s cabinet said Indian Express, “In Telangana, we were given carte blanche. We have worked on internal investigations and acted accordingly. This in no way means that party leaders did not contribute to the victory. They always patiently listened to us and took our advice into account.

It seems that in Telangana, during the battle of the Ks, the second K – Sunil Kanugolu – emerged victorious over K Chandrasekhar Rao.

With the contribution of agencies