'Did not play any role': Prashant Kishor on Chandrababu Naidu's historic win in Andhra Pradesh

Political strategist Prashant Kishor on Friday said that he didn't play any role in making Chandrababu Naidu win in Andhra Pradesh. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) stormed back to power in the southern state after winning 132 seats in a 175-member Assembly. 

TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu is set to reclaim his position as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and his swearing-in ceremony is expected to happen on June 12.

"I did not play any role in his win in Andhra Pradesh and I have not run any campaign for him in this election. I have officially quit running I-PAC and people will believe this as after they will see that I am not doing it for another 2-4 years," he said in an interview with India Today.

Prashant Kishor was probably the first to predict that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy would lose the assembly elections.

Kishor also admitted that his assessment of Lok Sabha polls related to BJP went wrong and he was 'ready to eat the humble pie' for the inaccuracies in his pre-poll assessments.

"Yes, I and pollsters like me got it wrong. We are ready to eat the humble pie," Kishor accepted in the interview.

He also said that he will never predict numbers in election results from now onwards. He acknowledged that his previous projections had often been off the mark in important places.

"I had put my assessment in front of you and I have to admit on camera that the assessment that I did was wrong in terms of numbers by a big 20 per cent. We were saying BJP would get somewhere close to 300 and they got 240. But I had earlier said that there was a little anger, but no widespread discontent against Narendra Modi," Prashat Kishor said.

"I had also said that there was no positive clamour from the opposition and that is why a status quo is being created with some geographical expansion in the east and south. Now, obviously, we have been proved wrong. But if you just go beyond the numbers, it's not that wrong. Because ultimately, they got 36 per cent vote share, which is the status quo. 0.7 per cent down in terms of vote share," he explained.