The Fall of a Partnership: Jagan and IPAC!

Former CM Jagan Mohan Reddy was so misinformed about the electoral trends this year that he went to the IPAC office a few days before the results and announced that YCP was winning by over 150 seats in the assembly polls. He had frequent consultations with IPAC chief Rishi Singh before making this announcement.

In reality, there were doubts about IPAC’s effectiveness after the departure of Prashant Kishor but Jagan was least bothered about this as he felt the new chief Rishi Singh is up for the job. Jagan was so confident about the polls that he announced he would be partnering with IPAC again for the 2029 election as well.

However, after the historic downfall in the recent election where YCP was confined to 11 seats, IPAC boss Rishi Singh is nowhere to be seen.

Jagan Mohan Reddy too was so taken aback by the result that there was no post-poll meeting with IPAC. He had been occasionally meeting his party leaders and that’s about it.

After playing a role in Jagan’s remarkable 151-seat win in the 2019 election, IPAC so badly misfired in 2024 that they couldn’t even see the ground level reality. In the end, YCP was relegated to 11 seats.

Jagan confidently used IPAC in every step of his political strategizing before the polls as the agency was taking shots on MLA candidates and their constituencies as well. Jagan appeared to be fully trusting the IPAC mechanism while he was unable to gauge the ground reality.

In the end, Jagan had to lost the CM chair and be content with MLA seat while the IPAC boss Rishi Singh is nowhere to be seen. In such a scenario, would Jagan really continue assocaitiong with IPAC till 2029?