LUCKNOW: A day after Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress’s rout in West Bengal assembly polls, the fate of pact between Samajwadi Party and political consultancy firm Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) for the 2027 elections now hangs in balance.I-PAC, which has been curating TMC’s poll campaign since 2019, was in talks with SP for the 2027 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.

“All that had happened between I-PAC and SP till now was that the company had made a presentation before the SP leadership on their blue-print of the campaign design. There was no formal exchange on anything beyond that,” said a senior SP functionary privy to the party’s exchange with I-PAC so far.Sources in SP said the party president Akhilesh Yadav was not very keen on hiring I-PAC and went through the agency’s presentation at the instance of the TMC leadership. After TMC’s abysmal performance in the WB polls, it was highly unlikely that the SP leadership will go ahead with any further negotiations with the firm now, said a source in SP.As per I-PAC sources, the company was grappling with crisis at multiple fronts and was in no shape to take any fresh assignments in the present scheme of things.

I-PAC was looking after TMC’s poll campaign in West Bengal when it made headlines after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided its office in Kolkata leading to a showdown between state’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the agency.The agency, which is now led by Pratik Jain, was founded by Jan Suraj Party chief Prashant Kishor who shot to limelight for designing the election campaigns of political bigwigs including PM Narendra Modi in 2014, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar in 2015, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in 2017 and the TMC.Prashant Kishore left I-PAC to take a plunge into mainstream politics and his JSP made its electoral debut in the recently held Bihar assembly elections where it failed to open its account.