Amogh Dhar Sharma is an Economic and Social Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford. He has previously worked as a Departmental Lecturer in Modern South Asia Studies at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and as a Stipendiary Lecturer in Politics at the Queen's College, Oxford. His research interests include comparative politics, political communication, and the political economy of development in South Asia.

• List of Tables; List of Figures; List of Abbreviations; Glossary; Preface & Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: Situating the Backstage of India's Democracy; 2. A Causal Framework for Professionalisation of Politics; 3. A Brief History of Electioneering; 4. 'Computer Boys' and 'Big Data' in the Indian National Congress; 5. Reluctant Professionalisation in the Bharatiya Janata Party; 6. The Rise of Political Consultants in India; 7. The Everyday Life of Political Consulting Firms; 8. Conclusion; Appendix: I-PAC Core Team Members' Dataset – A Methodological Note; Bibliography; Index.