BJP eyes electoral gains south of the Vindhyas

The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have invested an inordinate amount of time, energy and ingenuity in crafting their campaigns and barnstorming the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the run-up to the Assembly elections. The grubstakes appear disproportionate to the ground strength and following of the two parties, although given its political bequest, the Congress might be a tad ahead of the BJP.

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The two states and the UT have a robust flavour of the regional as against the ‘national’ in the other two southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Karnataka alone is conformist in the political sense. Bengaluru’s politics veers between the BJP and the Congress, although the provincial Janata Dal (Secular) has its niche.

So, what is about Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry that draws the Congress and the BJP?

From New Delhi’s perspective, Tamil Nadu is the most significant state because it has the largest number of Lok Sabha (39) and Assembly (234) seats in the south that were zealously guarded by the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The AIADMK and the DMK would love to carve out the territory between them but they were forced to yield the turf to sundry entities, birthed by individual charisma, caste and religion. Some of the minor players appended themselves to the AIADMK or the DMK, depending on their perception of who the winner was.

The irony of regional dynamics pushed the Congress and the BJP to likewise hang on to the coat-tails of the DMK and the AIADMK.

Tamil Nadu is one of the few states that defied national trends even in the parliamentary election, refusing to snap out of a provincial mould. The last Congress government was in 1967, under M Bhakthavatsalam, the grandfather of former Congress leader Jayanthi Natarajan, before the Dravida forces gained primacy.

Recent election data from Tamil Nadu reflects the state of the so-called mainstream parties. In the 2016 Assembly polls, the BJP had contested 188 seats, forfeited its deposits in 180, won nothing and was left with a vote share of 2.84 per cent. The Congress had fought on 41 seats (under the DMK-helmed alliance), won only eight and secured a vote share of 6.42 per cent. In contrast, the AIADMK, under the leadership of the late J Jayalalithaa, won 135 seats and racked up a vote share of 40.77 per cent, while the DMK picked up 88 of the 180 seats it fought and got 31.64 per cent of the votes.

Under the circumstances, is it audacious of the Congress and the BJP to furiously haggle with the ‘seniors’ for more and more seats?

That’s what they are doing. Bitter after the 2016 letdown — the DMK is convinced that but for the Congress’s dismal showing, MK Stalin, its president, would be seated at the CM’s Fort St George headquarters — Stalin is unwilling to concede more than 25 seats to his ally, half the number the Congress demanded.

Although there’s a role reversal in next-door Puducherry, where the Congress is in a commanding position vis-a-vis the DMK, Stalin is being pressured by his cadre to go solo.

Recently, the Congress lost the only government it had in the south in Puducherry, in part due to the BJP’s machinations and in part to the ineptness of its former CM V Narayanasamy, who failed to keep his legislators together.

The BJP, for long striving to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu, has been more realistic in bargaining with its ally, the AIADMK, though it can’t resist the temptation to upset the chessboard here and there.

It signalled a willingness to do business with the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam, helmed by VK Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s former confidante who is out of prison, and Sasikala’s nephew TTY Dhinakaran, to the AIADMK’s discomfiture. Sasikala and AIADMK’s reigning leaders Edappadi K Palaniswami, and O Panneerselvam are engaged in a zesty duel with Sasikala to reclaim Jayalalithaa’s legacy.

The Congress and the BJP have their own compulsions in either wanting to hold on to the south or travelling outside the comfort zone.

The Congress has lost huge territories in the north, west and east. In Maharashtra, it’s a straggler after the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party in the race to the top. For the Congress, the south looks like the most tenable way of staying afloat.

On the other hand, the BJP has peaked in the north and west. It has established itself in parts of the east. If it wrests West Bengal from the Trinamool Congress, it would have arrived as a force to Bihar’s east.

A peak is almost always followed by a trough and that’s why the BJP should be worried. It has saturated itself across a vast swathe to the north of the Vindhyas and has to travel southward to make fresh conquests, as it were, and not be confined to Karnataka.

Who imagined that the picturesque little Puducherry would become the base for a battle of supremacy between the Congress and the BJP? Apart from the Tamil Nadu ally, the AIADMK, the BJP has roped in the NR Congress and three ex-Congressmen, including A Namassivayam, who fancied himself as the future CM and crossed over in the hope of making it to the top post in case the BJP coalition gets a majority.

The Congress faces a litmus test in Kerala if not for any other reason than Rahul Gandhi representing the state in the Lok Sabha. Kerala is home to KC Venugopal, Rajya Sabha MP, general secretary and Rahul’s powerful aide.

The BJP lost its only ally, the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, here. Friendless at the moment, Kerala is, perhaps, the toughest region for the BJP after Tamil Nadu, notwithstanding the fact that its parent body, the RSS, is engaged in an ideological battle with the Left for decades.

However, its ideology never permeated electoral politics and herein lies the BJP’s challenge.