By Sushil Kutty
BJP-hating southerners identify Prime Minister Narendra Modi with everything they believe Indians can live without. With Electoral Bonds. With the Ayodhya Ram Mandir. With the Citizen’s Amendment Rules. With the overbearing nature of BJP leaders. With the breakdown of Rule of Law. With bulldozers running amok. Above all, a substantial number of Indians believe they could do without a third-term for Narendra Modi who talks so casually of “400 paar” that most southerners want to hit the streets with effigies.
On March 16, the poll schedule for the 2024 general elections was announced, the dates of the elections and in how many phases would the elections be concluded? But the Electoral Bonds-hit Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on his south tour, which included rallies in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana. A rally in Andhra Pradesh was on the cards. The Prime Minister feels it immensely that the South rejects the BJP and is a bastion that eludes his grasp like water escaping his fist.
On March 15, Modi addressed a rally in Kerala and a rally in Tamil Nadu. Then, there was a roadshow in Telangana, all in a day’s work for the workaholic Prime Minister. The Prime Minister expects the South to relent this time and it has got into his head that a number of recent political and social developments have changed the south people’s outlook towards the Bharatiya Janata Party and towards him in particular.
Ask and southerners might even laugh at Modi’s expense. The people of the south, unlike their unrelated cousins up north, have set ways and a superiority complex that has no cure. Look at how they treat the moustache. South heroes are almost, every single one of them, mustachioed. Suffice to say that the South thinks, acts, and votes differently, even completely opposite to how the north votes. Didn’t Rahul Gandhi point this out?
And, like the saying goes, the South voters have “got Modi’s number”. They know his motives. And they’ll not be fooled. Not last time; not the next time. The cohesion of purpose is starkly seen. For example, Keralites take exceptional pride in tackling communal tendencies, acting as one — whether Hindu, Muslim or Christian — which goes by the euphemism “communal harmony”, and ‘secularism”.
The South also considers itself Atlas, carrying the North on its shoulders. Kerala sneers and Tamil Nadu often derides the north. Didn’t one DMK MP christen Hindi-speaking states of the North as “gaumutra states”? “Gaumutra” directly alludes to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also of RSS stock and it doesn’t matter that in the South, there is no dearth of the RSS-type.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that winning a handful of Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh would be the beginning of a new trend favouring the BJP’s dream of being truely an all-India party, from north to south to east and west. If people haven’t noticed, the BJP is supremely confident of “400 paar” and opposition parties would be taking this lightly at their own peril.
Mind you, it is a warning. To win ‘370’ Lok Sabha seats, the BJP has to win from south India, too. A third term for the NDA depends on winning from the South. What we are hearing is the BJP has a south-winning formula and a plan chalked out. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in South India till March 19 and Modi’s south campaign is in full gear.
On March 17, Modi will be holding forth at a NDA rally in Palnadu, Andhra Pradesh, where TDP Chief N Chandrababu Naidu will also be sharing the stage with the Prime Minister. The TDP had recently returned to the NDA after moving out of the alliance in 2019, when it switched sides and joined the Congress alliance. Pollsters believe the TDP will do extremely well in the 2024 elections and the BJP will piggyback.
Next, there are the Tamilians, who are considered comparatively tougher customers. For a start, despite the Annamalai phenomena, it won’t be easy for the BJP unless things flip to an APP-like situation witnessed in Delhi, and thereafter in Punjab. Last heard, the mango people of Tamil Nadu were still with the Dravidian parties despite Modi’s saturation coverage of Tamil Nadu before and after the Ayodhya Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha.
Fact of the matter is, stringing four/five words in Malayalam for Kerala voters and a similar number in Tamil for Tamil Nadu voters wouldn’t bring around the voter in either of the two states. Modi believes both the Malayalee and the Tamil will vote BJP day after tomorrow if not today. After all, it is just a matter of time. Modi was slated to address a public meeting in Salem on March 16 and a roadshow in Coimbatore on March 18. (IPA Service)
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