The BJP’s attempt to push itself in south India ahead of the Lok Sabha despite a series of electoral reversals in the recent past reflects the change the party has brought into practising the art of the possible.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, by far the best political communicator around and the party’s star campaigner, has been visiting the states, especially Tamil Nadu, with unusual frequency and makes every attempt to co-opt the people there into the BJP agenda. Mr Modi knows very well that his party has been hopelessly isolated in Tamil Nadu after the AIADMK, the principal Opposition party in the state, walked out of the NDA. It has not only disowned the BJP; it makes a humongous effort to convince its traditional vote base that it will not ally with the saffron brigade even in the future.
The duopoly of the state’s politics, by the Dravidian mammoths DMK and AIADMK, however, does not intimidate the BJP at all. It is going the whole hog with its Hindutva campaign and aggressive promotion of Union government’s “achievements”. The Prime Minister deputed the Union finance minister, who at first earned the wrath of the southern parties for her dismissive statement on Tamil Nadu’s claims for Central relief, to go there and assess the damage caused by the recent rains and flood. He never misses an opportunity to tell the people of the state who are very proud of their ancient language culture that he promotes them whenever he gets a chance, at home or abroad. Mr Modi’s efforts are to establish an emotional link with the people which he knows will come handy when the time comes.
The dice is loaded against the BJP in Kerala, too. The best performance of the party in the state was in the 2016 Assembly election when the aura of Mr Modi as a brand new Prime Minister was at its peak. The party was aided by a political start-up launched by the SNDP Yogam which represents a powerful community in the state, too. It had won 15 per cent votes and a seat in the Kerala Assembly for the first time. It, however, is on a downslide in the state ever since. The party drew a blank in the 2021 Assembly election, losing the single seat it held.
It, however, never gives up after its losses. Even the adverse demography of the state made up by 28 per cent Muslims and 18 per cent Christians has not proved a dampener. The BJP is now busy wooing the latter community to make inroads into the state’s politics. It now bets its fortunes on a section of the Christian community, which once thrived under the rule of parties with secular ideologies but now finds secularism to be akin to a cussword and feels comfortable with the Sangh Parivar.
The BJP’s predecessors may not have had an active participation in the Indian national movement but the party relives the spirit of those times with its 24-by-seven political presence and its ability to engage with every section of society in the furtherance of its cause. It has felled many fortresses across the country, and only time will tell if those in the South will give in to the party’s incessant battering.
