DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday said poll strategist Prashant Kishor has joined him as his principal advisor. "Happy to share that @PrashantKishor has joined me as my Principal Advisor. Look forward to working together for the betterment of the people of Punjab!," said Amarinder Singh in a tweet. The development assumes significance as the Punjab Assembly elections are due early next year. Currently, Kishor's company, Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), is assisting Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the West Bengal elections. Kishor had handled the Congress poll campaign in the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections. The Congress in 2017 had stormed to power by bagging 77 seats in the 117-member assembly. Kishor was the brain behind Punjab Congress programmes like "Coffee with Captain" and "Punjab Da Captain" to drum up support for the party. Last year, the Punjab CM had said Kishor told him that he would be "quite happy" in handling the election campaign of the Congress in Punjab for the 2022 Assembly polls. His claims had come amid media reports that Kishor had said no to handling the party's campaign in the state. Amarinder Singh had then even said Congress president Sonia Gandhi had left it to him on roping in Kishor for the party's poll campaign in the state. The CM had then said that he had even asked his party MLAs whether they want Kishor for the next Assembly polls. "Out of 80 MLAs, 55 said yes, they want him," Singh had then said. Kishor had also managed Narendra Modi's campaign for prime ministership in the 2014 General Election. The BJP, long-term ally of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab, has announced that the party will contest all 117 Assembly constituencies in the 2022 state polls on its own. In September last year, the SAD went against the NDA over three new agriculture sector reform laws enacted - Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Service Act, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. As per the seat-sharing formula settled between the allies over the years, the SAD being the senior partner used to contest on around 94 seats and the BJP on 23. Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, SAD used to field candidates in 10 constituencies and the BJP on three. In 2017 Assembly polls, Congress won an absolute majority in the state by winning 77 seats and ousted the SAD-BJP government after 10 years. The SAD-BJP performed poorly in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as they won 2 seats each while Congress bagged 8 seats in Punjab. (editor@dailyworld.in)