Ajit Karn
Guwahati: In the recent Tripura election, Tipra Motha, a regional party founded by Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debburman, scion of the former royal family, emerged as the second-largest party after the BJP.
While Mr. Debburman led the party on the field and online, a 30-year-old worked behind the scenes to assist the newly-formed party in competing with the larger political parties. Prasun Kumar, who once managed Prasant Kishor’s office, was the mastermind behind the election campaign’s noisy entrance with music, large cut-outs of party chief Pradyot Manikya, movie screenings, and rally stages designed to resemble fashion show ramps.
Since 2022, Prasun Kumar, a civil engineering graduate, had been employed full-time by Pradyot Manikya. In contrast to other political strategists in the country, he lacks his own agency or organisation. Pradyot Manikya refers to him as his sole “political adviser.”
Prasun Kumar began his career as a Strategy and Management Consulting Professional for a real estate company, but in 2018 he decided to pursue his passion for Politics and Public Policy by returning to his native state of Bihar.
For the 2019 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections, he joined Prashant Kishor’s political consulting firm Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), where he worked for YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Later, Prashant Kishor chose him to serve alongside him in Bihar when he launched his political career as National Vice President of Janata Dal (United). Soon after, he was promoted to the position of overseeing the complete office of Prashant Kishor as well as the Bihar I-PAC Unit as the state leader.
In 2020, he was tasked with developing dedicated outreach campaigns for the Trinamool Congress campaign in West Bengal on behalf of I-PAC. Later that same year, he decided to leave I-PAC and pursue opportunities with new political leaders and political parties.
Prasun Kumar met Pradyot Manikya during the TTAADC elections in 2021, but he did not begin working full-time for Mr. Manikya’s party in Tripura until March 2022. Then, he assembled a group of young professionals through an innovative leadership programme known as the Maharaja Bir Bikram Leadership programme (MBBLP) and established a Media and Digital Communications Unit to expand the campaign’s activities. The majority of the juvenile boys and girls labouring in TIPRA’s election war room were state-born.
“I am indebted to Maharaja Pradyot Manikya for entrusting me with the responsibility of directing the election campaign strategy and execution for TIPRA. I have learned a great deal from him over the past year. The manner in which he reciprocates all of his people’s affection and emotion is truly inspiring “Mr. Kumar told the press.
He conceived of campaigns and slogans such as “Bubagra For All” and “TIPRA is Arriving.” His team was also responsible for the enormous cutouts of Party Chairman Pradyot Manikya, the eye-catching branding designs, and the colossal LED displays at election rallies, which made Tipra’s campaigns the talk of the town and compelled other political parties to follow suit.
Additionally, Tipra’s election songs, videos, creatives, and segments had a strong digital presence. “Hundreds of volunteers were identified and instructed to expand the party’s digital footprint,” Tipra Motha MLA Philip Reang from Kanchanpur told Media.
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Additionally, TIPRA was the first regional party to release its election platform. The manifesto was titled “TIPRA Vision Document” and contained numerous innovative and intriguing policies and programmes.
“On the one hand, TIPRA was pitted against the most powerful electoral juggernaut, the BJP, while on the other, the CPM had governed the state for over 25 years. To counter the BJP’s digital prowess, we had to match the CPM’s decade-old cadre strength on the ground and exponentially increase our digital footprint. I started from zero, as the party lacked a formal ecosystem of support. The Media and Digital Communications Unit was established, and Paul Dangshu, a newly elected MLA from the Karamcherra constituency, was appointed as its head “Mr. Kumar explained the difficulties he encountered.
Mr. Debburman’s new party, formed to advocate for a Greater Tipraland, has won 13 seats in the assembly elections. It was the second-largest victory, and it came at the expense of the BJP ally IPFT (Indigenous Progressive Front of Tripura), which won only one of the five seats it contested. The Republican Party won 31.
