Parakala Prabhakar

Some Lesser Known Facts About Parakala Prabhakar

• Parakala Prabhakar was born into a Brahmin Family in Narsapuram, Andhra Pradesh.

• Belonging to a family with a political background, Parakala, was familiar with electoral politics from a very young age.

• Prabhakar was exposed to the politics when he was elected as the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi from the students’ organisation National Students’ Union of India (NSUI).

• In 1984, he got appointed as the NSUI Central Committee’s All India’s Vice President. He toured different universities across various states to organise the activities of the Congress party’s students’ wings.

• After completing his post graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Parakala bagged a scholarship and went to London to complete his PhD.

  

• While doing his PhD, Prabhakar submitted his thesis on “Security Doctrines and Foreign Policy Behaviour: A Study of Brazil, Ghana and Indonesia.”

• He had worked on his thesis at the International Relations Department under the guidance of Christopher Coker.

• After he returned from London, Narasimha Rao, who was a family friend of Prabhakar’s family, appointed him as an ‘Officer on Special Duty’ to look after the implementation of the project ‘Rajiv Gandhi National Institute for Youth Development (RGNIYD).

• 1994, he left the RGNIYD project and joined the Indian National Congress.

• While working as the Communications Advisor to the Andhra Pradesh Government, Parakala introduced social media into every department of the government.

• On 19 June 2018, Prabhakar resigned from the post of the Communications Advisor of Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. He mentioned in his resignation that he was hurt from the comments of the Opposition Leaders’ and did not want to cause any shadow of doubt on the government.

• After the 2009 Assembly elections, the Tamil actor, Naga Babu, called Prabhakar a Snake and asserted him of cheating Chiranjeevi as it was Prabhakar who damaged the poll prospects of Praja Rajyam Party before the 2009 elections.

• In 2009, when the UPA government revealed its intentions of dividing Andhra Pradesh into two states, Prabhakar was against the idea and formed “Visalandhra Mahasabha,” a panel which was aimed at keeping the state of Andhra Pradesh united.

• Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he criticised the BJP government over the electoral bond issue and termed it the biggest scam in the world. ^[1]Live Mint