Sunil Kanugolu Who Helped Congress Win Karnataka And Telangana, Made Maharashtra Poll Strategy In-Charge

Indian National Congress has roped in poll strategist Sunil Kanugolu for spearheading its poll campaign in upcoming Maharashtra State Assembly polls. As per reports, this was decided after the state Congress leaders held a meeting with Kanugolu in Delhi earlier this week.

The Maharashtra Congress unit has received a shot in the arm after increasing its Lok Sabha seat share in the state from one to 13 in the recently held 2024 general elections. Ever since then, the state leadership of the party was reportedly keen on getting Kanugolu’s assistance as the latter is supposed to have been instrumental in catapulting Congress to power in Telangana and Karnataka.

Strategist Kanugolu designed poll campaign for Karnataka state Congress unit centred around the allegations of the then ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders demanding 40 percent cut to contractors is said to have helped the grand old party.

His campaign idea of organising protests against corruption in Karnataka, titled ‘pay CM,’ which sounded similar to the popular digital payments application named ‘Paytm,’ had helped Congress provoke anger among voters against the ruling BJP government in the southern state.

The polling strategist was seen employing a similar strategy in Telangana where he helped the Congress outnumber the ruling Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi in the state assembly elections.

Here, Congress cadre had latched on to the images of cracks in the newly built Meddigadda Reservoir and allegations of large scale corruption in the Kaleshwaram Irrigation Project.

Kanugolu is supposed to have suggested the Congress cadre in the state to install boxes bearing the image of the BRS leader and state chief minister K C Rao with his mouth wide open. Congress volunteers were seen inserting fake notes in the same insinuating that the CM was directly benefiting from the alleged corruption in the execution of the irrigation project.

Kanugolu runs the Bengaluru-based campaign firm Inclusive Minds and is considered to be a close confidante of the Nehru-Gandhi scion and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Before starting out independently, he had worked with the noted poll strategist Prashant Kishore to manage BJP’s campaign during the 2014 general elections.