Prashant Kishor has been distancing himself from his election consultancy group I-PAC
Election strategist Prashant Kishor's collaboration with the Congress was a non-starter but his former associate has now signed up for the role.
Sunil Kanugolu has been tasked with planning the Congress's campaign from 2023, starting with the state elections next year. As for the 2024 national election, a senior Congress leader said that decision would be taken "in due course".
Mr Kanugolu, who, along with Prashant Kishor, was part of the team that managed Narendra Modi's blockbuster 2014 campaign, bagged the new assignment after meetings with the three Gandhis.
As an associate of Mr Kishor, Mr Kanugolu had reportedly worked in the past with the BJP, DMK, AIADMK and Akali Dal.
Last year, soon after the Bengal election victory in April-May, Mr Kishor - or "PK" - had held talks with Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The discussions explored the possibility of a consultancy or full-time Congress membership for PK, whose only political stint so far - with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party - was short-lived.
After several rounds, when talks with PK failed, the Congress approached Mr Kanugolu, who had worked with the AIADMK for the Tamil Nadu election (MK Stalin's DMK, which won the election, had hired PK).
Sources say Mr Kanugolu was reluctant at first - he was also working with the Congress's Punjab rival, the Akalis - but he finally agreed.
"Our feedback system was poor. We just got the numbers (surveys) from our data team but the mechanism to fix the issues and the areas where we were lagging wasn't effective... and the messaging ...that's where Kanugolu will help the party," a senior leader told NDTV.
"For now, Sunil will handle the Karnataka and Telangana assembly elections scheduled in 2023," the leader said.
After working with the BJP in 2014, Mr Kanugolu continued with the party in 2017. He is credited with the DMK's spectacular show in the 2019 national election. His "Namakku Naame (we for ourselves)" campaign for Mr Stalin was a big hit.
After the 2019 election, Mr Kanugolu switched from the DMK to AIADMK.
Even bigger is his latest switch, to the Congress, after his close association with the BJP and its leadership in many states.
The breakdown of the Congress-PK talks was revealed when the ace strategist went public with his disdain of the Gandhis' leadership and took multiple shots at Rahul Gandhi.
Neither the Congress nor PK have shared exactly why the talks collapsed. One theory is that trust deficit and differences between Rahul Gandhi and Prashant Kishor who earlier had a brief stint with the party handling Uttar Pradesh elections in 2017.
Mr Kishor has been distancing himself from his election consultancy group I-PAC for months now and has been leaning towards a more political job description.
His rival has landed the Congress assignment a time Mr Kishor's outfit IPAC is seen to face turbulence in its ties with Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress.