After a series of setbacks, including the recent electoral reverses in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and the collapse of its proposed Uttar Pradesh assignment with the Samajwadi Party (SP), members of political consultancy firm I-PAC have floated smaller firms, seeking to rebuild through this route and keeping themselves distant from the brand name. At least three smaller companies have been set up – Parlin Research and Insights, VoterBridge and The Mandate Labs – all having links to I-PAC. In Karnataka, a roughly 20-member team is believed to be working on a small project in Bagalkot for senior Congress leader S R Patil through Parlin Research and Insights, a firm registered in July this year. The firm is being steered by a senior I-PAC hand, according to sources. “After the electoral setback and Enforcement Directorate (ED) action in Bengal, we have to lie low and regroup. It is a matter of survival now. We are working though the I-PAC brand is not being used,” a senior member of the team in Bagalkot told The Indian Express, hoping that projects in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will open up for I-PAC after the Uttar Pradesh elections in February next year. With polls in Karnataka scheduled only in 2028, the team feels it has enough time to re-establish itself. A source said I-PAC had worked with Patil earlier in 2021. While he worked with another firm in 2022-2023, I-PAC reconnected with him in 2025, said a source, who was a part of the meetings with Patil. The promise made to Patil is to project him as “the tallest Congress leader of North Karnataka”, said sources. A Karnataka minister in the first Siddaramaiah -led Congress Cabinet, Patil has served as the leader of the Legislative Council. Though there was a Buzz that he would re-enter the Council, he Missed Out in the recent MLC polls. Repeated attempts to contact I-PAC Director Rishi Raj Singh went unanswered. Asked about the issue, Patil refused to comment. Like Karnataka, elections in Maharashtra too are some distance away. Here, members of I-PAC are working under the aegis of VoterBridge, a firm founded by Vasudha Singh, the wife of I-PAC director Vinesh Chandel , and they are said to have advised the besieged NCP. Sources said that around 20 members were helping put into order the organisation of the party, which remains in turmoil after the death of its supremo Ajit Pawar in a plane crash in January this year. A former I-PAC employee said the intervention of Prashant Kishor helped get them the NCP deal. The co-founder of I-PAC who has publicly distanced himself from the political consultancy firm he helped shape and succeed, Kishor is now an MLA from Bankipur in Bihar , having set up the Jan Suraaj party. The ex-I-PAC staffer said: “The Naresh Arora-led DesignBox was offering consultancy services to the NCP from before the 2024 polls. But after the death of Ajit Pawar, Kishor held meetings with members of the Pawar family, where he convinced them that putting the party in order was of prior importance. He offered to send a team of 20-odd ‘experts’ for the task.” Another source said that the party was now dealing with The Mandate Labs, steered by I-PAC director Pratik Jain. In May, Kishor had met Sunetra and Parth Pawar, Ajit Pawar’s wife and son, in Mumbai . At the time, Parth described it as a “courtesy interaction” and said there was no formal arrangement for Kishor to work with the NCP. Asked about it, Kishor told The Indian Express that he had quit the political advisory space in 2021.
