In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, the Samajwadi Party had roped Jarding in for ensuring a second term in charge of the government, but failed miserably
New Delhi: The Congress has once again handed over the reins of its future to foreign hands. Top sources confirmed to MyNation that after the Cambridge Analytica gaffe, party chief Rahul Gandhi has retained the services of Harvard’s public policy professor and communication strategies specialist Steve Jarding to trump the Modi challenge in the 2019 general elections.
While sources also confirmed that Rahul met the academician in London as part of his Europe trip, Jarding himself has a rather dismal record in India. In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections, the Samajwadi Party had roped him in for ensuring a second term in charge of the government, but failed miserably. Jarding had established his office in Lucknow and led a 100-strong team.
Sources added that the professor had been retained at a mindboggling salary which could run into a couple of crores of rupees a month. According to information with MyNation, the political analyst, who also advised Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, would shift base to India sometime in December, while the Congress would be assembling a crack team in the meantime. He would be staying here till the end of the elections.
Incidentally, this is the third time that the Congress would be hiring a foreign agency to run its election campaign. In 2014, the party had hired Japanese communications company Dentsu and had later blamed the firm for its own debacle in the polls. Dentsu was then hired for some Rs 600 crore.
What Dentsu failed to do then — it was hired with the express aim of sprucing up Rahul’s image as a politician — the Congress is seeking to accomplish via Jarding.
Sources said Jarding would be repackaging Rahul to project him as a formidable adversary to PM Narendra Modi and also work on his body language and speech delivery.
Apart from working on Rahul’s image, the political guru, said sources, has been tasked with tailoring a campaign not just for the Congress, but the entire alliance.
Sources confirmed that he would be identifying only 250 to 300 seats which Rahul would be focussing upon in his campaign strategy.
Jarding’s page on the Harvard website said: “He has lectured or consulted in over 25 countries in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe. In addition, over a 40-year career, Jarding has managed and worked on numerous statewide and national campaigns in the United States including an impressive list of winning US Senate and gubernatorial races.”
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