After facing setbacks in successive polls, the Janata Dal (Secular) leadership in Karnataka is in talks with poll strategist Prashant Kishor to revive the party for the future, party sources said on Thursday. JD(S) leader and former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy is slated to hold talks with Kishor soon on organising the party for the days ahead.
"Kumaraswamy will be meeting Prashant Kishor. The date and time is yet to be fixed but after seeing his strategy work out in Bihar and other places, the JD(S) wants to try it here," a party source said.
"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," another party source told PTI.
JD(S) state president HK 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 begun work towards organising the party from the grassroots level, and it will get a boost after the national level meeting of the party on February 10 and 11," he said.
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 HD Deve Gowda was also defeated in the parliamentary polls. The party also failed to win even a single seat during the December 2019 bye-polls to 15 assembly constituencies in the state.
The Prashant 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.