Can Sunil Kanugolu bring India’s Modi down, 10 years after helping him win?

Sunil Kanugolu, the election strategist who once helped Modi and his BJP come to power and consolidate their hold over India, is now trying to defeat them [Image from X]

A small crack in one of the pillars supporting the world’s largest lift-irrigation project was the opening that Sunil Kanugolu was looking for as he shepherded the election campaign of the opposition Congress party in the southern Indian state of Telangana late last year.

Up against the regional Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party whose leader K Chandrashekhar Rao had ruled Telangana since the state’s birth a decade earlier, the Congress, riding on disenchantment over alleged corruption and nepotism, was polling well.