Narendra Modi in Lok Sabha (Image credit, Lok Sabha Secretariat)
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, January 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is embarking on a two-day long blitzkrieg in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Lakashadweep from Tuesday. While Modi’s visit to the southern pockets is principally for the official events, the political import is understandable amid deepening disconnect of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in South India.
The BJP is now without major allies in Tamil Nadu. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had polled a little over three per cent votes in Tamil Nadu while being part of a grand alliance led by the AIADMK. With the top brass of the BJP backing the Tamil Nadu state unit chief K. Annamalai, a cop turned politician, the saffron outfit has lost the ally AIADMK, as well as a number of party functionaries.
The social media trend #GoModiBack has trended on previous occasions when the prime minister visited Tamil Nadu. The BJP leaders attribute the social media trend to the conspiracies of the ruling DMK in the state. However, incumbent Chief Minister MK Stalin shows customery niceties when the prime minister or senior ministers visit Tamil Nadu unlike his previous Telangana counterpart K. Chandrashekhar Rao.
The BJP leaders note with concern that the “magic of the Brand Modi is not sweeping across the southern parts of the country. The high hopes from Telanganga where the BJP had a head-start on account of impressive show in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections now have turned into despair after the Congress straged a remarkable comeback to wrest power in Hyderabad.
One of the BJP leaders grimly noted that while “Modi has been travelling to the southern parts of the country for the last 10 years, the BJP is yet to electorally gain”. Modi has carefully sought to build a pro-Tamil language. He has hailed the language at international forums such as the United Nations General Assembly, as well as richly quoting the cultural icon Thiruvalluvar in his speeches.
But the rains of votes in the BJP’s parched land of Tamil Nadu have eluded the party. The state’s political observers attribute the BJP’s electoral drought to better social schemes of Tamil Nadu government which blunt Modi’s principal poll plank of welfarism while the state has never been a fertile ground for Hindutva politics.
In contrast, the BJP has been seen with interest in Kerala with a section of the political actors fancying that the saffron outfit could grab the third pivot in the state politics. Modi for the last one year has been meeting a section of the Church leaders. He also hosted the Christian community leaders for Christmas celebrations at the 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA alliance in Kerala had polled 15.64 per cent votes. The BJP had polled 13 per cent votes. The BJP-led NDA had led in seven Assembly constituencies in 2019 polls. But the BJP faces the usual foe in Kerala that the party lacks state leaders who can catch the imagination of the people in the elections and be seen as a serious contendor for power in Thiruvananthpuram.
The ‘Mission South’ of the BJP was coined somewhere in 2016. But the party has seen least gains from the slogan in the last seven years. It also lost shines after the BJP lost power in Karnataka where the party now has to cede space to the JD (S).
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