GhoseSpot | South Ahoy: With 2024 in mind, BJP launches expedition to Cape Comorin

While the rest of the country was still trying to digest the political developments in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership had moved onto its National Executive meet in Hyderabad. It was a bugle call of sorts for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. At another level it was also a declaration of war against the K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government with an eye on the state Assembly elections in end 2023 immediately preceding the national elections in 2024. As it is often said, the election juggernaut of the BJP works 24x7 and never rests. However, the message was not limited to the 2024 and Telangana elections alone. The proceedings and addresses of the party’s top leadership — most importantly the prime minister — gave a sneak preview of the next stage of evolution in BJP’s electoral strategy. This included on the one hand enlarging its demographic cache and expansion of its geographic footprint on the other. Once regarded as the party of upper castes and traders from the Hindi heartland, the BJP under Narendra Modi surprised both its adversaries and political experts with its social re-engineering and pan-India proliferation. Who would have thought even a few years ago that BJP would be ruling over most of the North-eastern states? Even in the recent Uttar Pradesh elections many experts thought the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav would upend BJP’s caste arithmetic by reviving the old Mandal-Kamandal equation. But much to their chagrin the BJP was able to retain the bulk of its new OBC constituency. Immediately prior to the National Executive meet, the BJP stole the thunder of Opposition groups by selecting a woman tribal leader, Droupadi Murmu, as its candidate for the upcoming presidential elections. As this writer has discussed in a previous column, the choice of Murmu went far beyond mere symbolism. It was a definitive signal to the hitherto marginalised tribal community of their political mainstreaming. As had been pointed out in the earlier article, this has huge significance not only in tribal dominated regions of the East and North East but also other states like Andhra Pradesh that have a substantial tribal population. With this move the BJP was opening up new subaltern frontiers. What was even more revelatory though, was the prime minister’s address in which he asked the executive to make conscious forays into the “non-elite” sections of the minority communities. This strategy was already work-in-progress and early shoots were visible in the just concluded Lok Sabha byelection of Rampur and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. Having piloted it in UP the party seems to have a blueprint in place for replicating it in other states by 2024. However, the project is not restricted to Muslims alone. In the North-East, the BJP has tasted considerable success in its outreach among the Christian dominated tribal communities. During his intervention, Himanta Biswa Sarma — the chief minister had also asserted that the BJP is finding acceptance among certain ethnic groups among the Muslims. Sarma has been entrusted to transfer the model to states like Kerala for showcasing among the under-privileged sections of Christians and Muslims. This is an opportunity to prove his mettle on the national stage moving beyond Assam. More importantly, it could begin the BJP’s creeping entry into the impregnable bastion of minority communities and leftists that Kerala has been for so long. Interestingly, Sarma has been at the forefront of the BJP’s offensive in Telangana for some time. Way back in January 2022 he had made a controversial speech in Warangal, where he said, “The legacy of Nizam will come to an end and a new culture based on Indian civilisation will emerge”, ruffling many feathers. With that he had also attacked the dynastic and “dictatorial” culture of the present TRS government. That his remarks were not off-the-cuff and without sanction became clear from the tone and tenor of other leaders who spoke at the conclave including the prime minister. Most notably PM Modi during his public rally — apart from tearing into the dynastic culture referred to Hyderabad as Bhagyanagar — which the BJP claims was its original name before rechristening by Muslim rulers. Not to be missed was also Mr Modi recalling the names of numerous temples cutting across the length and breadth of the state apparently to underscore its Hindu roots. Telangana is clearly the BJP’s next target in the south after having established its roots comprehensively in Karnataka. The approach appears to be similar, namely that of Hindu consolidation. Without doubt BJP would face a spirited opposition from the ruling TRS, which apart from national issues like inflation and employment will play the card of sub-regional chauvinism portraying the BJP as outsiders, much like what Mamata Banerjee had done in West Bengal. Following Banerjee’s playbook, in all probability scripted by the ubiquitous election consultant Prashant Kishor, KCR is also flaunting his national ambitions to take on Narendra Modi in the 2024 elections as the first among equals in a united Opposition front. While that may still be a long shot, the outcome of BJP’s Telangana experiment would be crucial for its further forays into the south. That brings us to Tamil Nadu which would be by far the most complex state for Modi-Shah to deal with. Sensing the BJP’s game-plan the DMK has re-upped its ante on ethnic identity with the usual bogeys of language imposition and greater autonomy for the states. DMK leader A Raja raising the prickly issue of a separate Dravid land in the presence of the chief minister, MK Stalin, could be a part of some calibrated gamesmanship. BJP on its part is playing on the twin axes of propping up a faction of the AIADMK of Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) and simultaneously building its own constituency cashing on the sentiments anti-Brahminic positioning of DMK. Its young firebrand leader K Annamalai is gaining traction causing some disquiet among the local parties — even raising the spectre of future bifurcation of the state. PM Modi’s visit to Chennai a month ago inaugurating several developmental projects funded by the Centre and announcing new ones worth over Rs 31,000 crore was seen as an exercise to woo the Tamil people. At the same time in his speech he went at length to assuage apprehensions about dilution of Tamil culture and steam rolling over Tamil language. The BJP’s incursions to the south are not driven only by its hegemonistic designs of establishing an “Akhand Bharat”. It is also prompted by existential concerns for spreading its catchment area below the Vindhyas to compensate for potential losses in its traditional strongholds. With 2024 in mind, it would need to accelerate the pace as incremental progress will not deliver the additional numbers it needs in its safety kit. Given the urgency it may have to deploy a mix of conventional methods and disruptive tactics as we saw in Maharashtra. In its mission of extending the saffron presence from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the Telangana summit was the inauguration of its expedition to Cape Comorin of yore with skipper Modi calling South Ahoy. The author is a current affairs commentator, marketer, blogger and leadership coach, who tweets at @SandipGhose. Views expressed are personal. 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