Modi’s South push ahead of Lok Sabha polls: Why Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana matter to the BJP

The election campaigns for the next Lok Sabha elections are now in focus, following a busy Thursday that saw the selection of two new Election Commissioners and the release of information regarding the Electoral Bonds Scheme.

Kerala, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu are three important southern states that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting as part of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) increased efforts in the region.

He is expected to hold various roadshows till at least 19 March.

Here’s why the BJP needs PM Modi to push hard in the South.

PM Modi’s visit to Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana

The BJP’s campaigns in Kerala, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, where the saffron party hasn’t yet made significant gains, will be led by the prime minister.

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PM Modi arrives at Pathanamthitta and will be greeted by K Surendran, the BJP’s state chief, Prakash Javadekar, the party’s Kerala in-charge, state General Secretary George Kurian, and district president of Pathanamthitta, VA Sooraj. One lakh people are expected to attend a public meeting where the PM will speak, according to NDTV sources.

According to the report, Padmaja Venugopal, the daughter of former Kerala Chief Minister K Karunakaran and a stalwart of the Congress party, will also be present at the meeting along with the NDA’s Lok Sabha picks, V Muraleedharan, Anil K Antony, Sobha Surendran, and Baiju Kalasala.

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For the first time since the AIADMK left the NDA last year over disagreements with the BJP’s state president, K Annamalai, the BJP is without an ally in Tamil Nadu. PM Modi will be campaigning in Kanniyakumari during his fifth visit to the state this year.

Today, the Prime Minister will continue his tireless campaign tour by visiting Telangana to gain backing for his party. He is scheduled to arrive in Begumpet this evening for a roadshow in Malkajgiri Chowrasta, according to PTI. Eatala Rajender, the party’s Lok Sabha candidate, and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy will accompany him.

For the roadshow, the police have issued a traffic advisory, and a number of areas will be off-limits to the general public until the event concludes.

The prime minister will spend the night at Raj Bhavan and tomorrow, he will address the public in Nagarkurnool. The PM will attend a BJP-TDP-Jana Sena public meeting on Sunday in Chilakaluripeta.

Also read: Opinion Poll: How Modi, jobs and inflation will be the key factors for 2024

His South push

Even while the BJP is working tirelessly to woo the five southern states where it has not yet made significant gains, looks like Tamil Nadu is receiving special attention.

Tamil Nadu has a total of 39 Lok Sabha seats and the neighbouring Puducherry one. The BJP has not been able to make significant electoral gains in Tamil Nadu in the past but the saffron party is hopeful of reversing that trend, especially under an aggressive K Annamalai who is heading its state unit, as per PTI.

Since January this year, the 73-year-old Indian premier has already made four visits to the state to inaugurate projects and hold rallies. According to India Today, he has so far announced projects worth over Rs 30,000 crore in his outreach in Tamil Nadu, and he has personally launched some of them.

Without highlighting the consecration of the Ayodhya Ram temple, which has little significance in the state, Modi has often criticised the DMK in his speeches for its “misrule” over the past three years, its dynastic politics, and its anti-Hindu leanings. He has also deftly avoided aiming at its former ally AIADMK.

Modi has visited Kerala three times and each time he was welcomed warmly. He held a roadshow and spoke to thousands of women in Thrissur on 3 January. He arrived in Kochi on 16 January to attend the daughter’s wedding of actor and BJP candidate for Thrissur, Suresh Gopi. During his visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram on 27 February, the Indian leader announced the names of the four astronauts who have been selected for India’s first human space mission, the Gaganyaan Mission. He went to a BJP event as well.

In Telangana, he has previously unveiled multiple development projects, attended several programmes, and addressed public rallies in recent months.

As a part of Viksit Bharat, he unveiled infrastructure projects during his 13-day-long tour across the country, including Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, J&K, Odisha and North-East. This month, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stones for these projects, which have a combined value of a whopping Rs 8.25 lakh crore, according to News18.

For those unversed, India’s overall capital expenditure budget for 2022–2023 was Rs 10 lakh crore, while for 2023–2024 is set at Rs 11 lakh crore.

Why the BJP is shifting focusing to southern states 

By the time the BJP secures 370 Lok Sabha seats in 2024, PM Modi hopes to surpass the NDA’s 400 seat threshold.

The BJP is seeking to expand its political base in the southern states, which are primarily influenced by the Congress and regional parties. As such, South India is naturally seen as the primary focus of this new political case in the upcoming election.

The BJP attained 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections after reaching an all-time high in the previous two elections, winning all of the Hindi heartland as well as Northeast and West India.

Without the substantial assistance of the southern states, it would be difficult to meet the goal that Modi set for the 2024 elections. This explains why he has shifted his attention to the southern states — especially Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Telangana — unusually long before the general elections.

The ruling party at the Centre had secured only 29 seats to its name from the 132 total seats in the five southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Telangana, as well as the Union Territories of Puducherry and Lakshadweep.

25 came from Karnataka, four from Telangana, and not a single seat from other south Indian states, including Tamil Nadu. The BJP has less sway over other southern states than Karnataka, hence the 84 seats in the south are the primary focus of attention.

In order to reach the mountain-high goal, the BJP is focusing on a few state-wide regional parties as well as a coalition that it made with the Tamil Maanila Congress, led by GK Vasan, writes GV Anshuman Rao in his opinion piece for Jagran.

In the run-up to the elections, the party is also attempting to woo the PMK and actor Vijayakanth’s DMDK in the state, as per NDTV.

While the DMK has constructed a narrative around the BJP’s attack on federalism and financial inequity in southern states, the prime minister has been criticising the ruling DMK for dynastic politics and corruption. With Vijayadharani, the Congress’s current MLA in Kanyakumari, joining the party, the party has had little success.

In Kerala though, the saffron party is attempting to win over the minority Christian population to establish a solid base in a state where the party’s perceived pro-Hinduism faces significant challenges due to the state’s predominately Muslim and Christian populations, explained NDTV.

By giving veteran Yeddyurappa’s son Vijayendra direction of the state organisation, the BJP, still reeling from its loss in the most recent Karnataka assembly elections, has laid the groundwork for its plan to mount a formidable challenge in the Lok Sabha. The NDA now includes Janata Dal Secular, Deve Gowda’s party, in an attempt to restore the political imbalance.

According to Rao, while the PM is preparing a counterattack on corruption, the BJP is utilising the Siddaramaiah government’s delays in enforcing the electoral guarantee promises made by the Congress in Karnataka as a weapon.

Following their defeat in the last Telangana elections, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi party in Telangana is in disarray, with the majority of their leaders reportedly fleeing to join the Congress or the BJP. The PM, too, is once again outspoken about KCR’s dynastic politics. In a setting like this, the most competitive race seems to be primarily between the BJP and the Congress in Telangana.

Though Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy’s party, YSR Congress, is also in a frantic attempt to keep a political relationship with PM Modi, BJP’s election coalition with N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party and Jana Sena Party (JSP) is finalised.

Opinion poll on BJP-led NDA

The mega opinion poll by News18 suggest that the BJP-led NDA might win many seats — more than 400 out of 543, to be exact. The result goes in line with the recent “400 paar” statement of PM Modi, made during a public address.

The survey indicates that the NDA could potentially win 411 out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, with the BJP alone expected to claim a record-breaking 350 seats. Other members of the NDA, such as JD(U) and TDP, are projected to secure a combined total of 61 seats.

The poll suggests clean sweep victory for BJP led NDA in Northern States like Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujrat, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi. The survey also forecasts significant gains for the BJP in states like West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu. For the first time in a long haul, BJP is expected to bag two seats in Kerala.

Meanwhile, the opposition INDIA bloc, comprising major non-BJP parties including Congress, is predicted to face challenges in denting Prime Minister Modi’s bid for a third term, with projections suggesting a tally of just 56 seats for the coalition, including 49 seats for Congress.

If these predictions materialise, it would mark a significant electoral setback for Congress, possibly its second-worst performance in Lok Sabha elections after its historic low of 44 seats in 2014.

The full results of the opinion poll came Thursday, indicating strong prospects for Modi to secure a third consecutive term in office.

With inputs from agencies