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According to its own financial records, I-PAC witnessed a sharp financial reversal as its earlier growth took a nosedive in 2025 even before the raids in its Kolkata office
The story of I-PAC enters this moment not with a campaign, but with a set of numbers that raise difficult questions. (Image: News18/File)
Beyond the noise and the visible poll contest in West Bengal, another crucial narrative is unfolding in the background – one that speaks less about candidates and more about the machinery that once claimed it could script electoral outcomes.
The story of I-PAC enters this moment not with a campaign, but with a set of numbers that raise difficult questions.
As the Enforcement Directorate continues its probe into the I-PAC – or Indian PAC Consulting Private Limited as it is registered with the Registrar of Companies, Kolkata, in 2015 – News18 gained exclusive access and analysed the latest financials of the company. According to the records, it witnessed a sharp financial reversal as its earlier growth took a nosedive in 2025, even before the raids in its Kolkata office.
According to I-PAC’s audited profit and loss statement for FY 2024-25, filed with the ministry of corporate affairs, it has reported a dramatic financial reversal for the year ended March 31, 2025 swinging from a profit of Rs 18.32 crore to a net loss of Rs 2.42 crore. It witnessed its revenue from operations collapse by more than 35 percent, sharply dropping from Rs 206.59 crore in FY24 to just Rs 133.48 crore in FY25 – an erosion of nearly Rs 73 crore in top-line income within a single fiscal year.
TOPLINE COLLAPSED, COSTS STAY STUBBORN
A senior corporate affairs official said the scale of the decline points to a serious disruption in I-PAC’s core business operations.
The stress runs deeper than the topline. Finance costs alone stand at Rs 62.28 crore, accounting for nearly 46 percent of total revenue.
Even as income sharply contracted, expenses reduced by only 27.5 percent exposing a cost structure that has failed to realign with the shrinking scale of operations. The company that once prided itself on efficiency now appears weighed down by its own architecture.
Employee benefit expenses surged to Rs 13.65 crore in FY25, compared to a negative figure of Rs 4.61 crore in the previous year – this shows significant prior-year reversals that had artificially flattered the FY24 books. With earnings per share turning negative (0.02), zero tax liability reflecting no recoverable profits, and auditors signing off on September 5, 2025, I-PAC now faces mounting pressure to restructure its debt, arrest the revenue slide, and restore investor confidence.
The company’s audited cash flow statement for the period ended March 31, 2025, the company generated a net operating cash inflow of Rs 2.21 crore – a sharp collapse from Rs 8.95 crore in FY24. The operating engine is still running, but barely.
On the investing front, the company recorded a net outflow of Rs 1.03 crore primarily driven by Rs 2.05 crore deployed into current trade investments and partially offset by Rs 1.05 crore recovered from long-term loans and advances. Fixed asset purchases were a minimal Rs 0.04 crore – signalling a near-complete freeze on capital expenditure, a classic defensive posture in distress.
UNDER PROBE, YET ON GROUND
This financial strain is accompanied by intensifying scrutiny. The ED continues its investigation into IPAC-linked entities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
One of the company’s three directors has been arrested in a separate money laundering case, while another has been subject to enforcement raids – developments that have added legal and reputational pressure at a time of operational decline. And yet, even as the balance sheet weakens and oversight tightens, the imprint of I-PAC has not entirely faded from the ground, particularly in West Bengal.
Officially, IPAC-linked operations in Bengal are paused. Unofficially, multiple accounts from within political circles suggest that data teams remain active in a reduced, less visible capacity.
Booth-level inputs continue to be tracked. Messaging is still being refined.
As the state moves from the first phase into this decisive stretch, the infrastructure built over the past decade appears to be functioning without attribution, without visibility, but not without influence. To understand this moment, it is necessary to place it against the arc of I-PAC’s own evolution.
FROM DISRUPTION TO STRESS: THE I-PAC ARC
In 2014, under Prashant Kishor, I-PAC positioned itself as a disruptor by introducing a new grammar of electioneering built on data, scale, and precision.
It was not just a campaign consultancy, it was a claim that politics could be systematised. But that claim encountered resistance.
The early successes, from the national stage to Bihar, were followed by uneven outcomes elsewhere. Traditional political structures proved reluctant to yield control to external strategists.
The idea of a standardised, data-driven pathway to power ran up against the complexities of regional politics, leadership egos, and entrenched networks. Over time, however, I-PAC adapted by becoming less visible and more embedded.
What is visible now suggests something beyond adaptation. The financial contraction, the rigidity in costs, and the overlay of legal scrutiny point to a model under stress.
At the same time, its continued, if understated, operational presence in an active election reflects a different reality. The systems it helped build have outlasted the certainty of its own position.
As South Bengal votes in what is arguably the most consequential phase of the election, I-PAC’s story is no longer about disruption at scale. It is about endurance under strain of a political consultancy that reshaped campaigns, and is now navigating the limits of that very transformation.
April 28, 2026, 08:00 IST
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