The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could win only 29 of the 129 Lok Sabha seats in the five southern states in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and 25 of these seats came from Karnataka, a state that the BJP lost last year in the state elections. The BJP could not open its account in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
But that is not deterring the party from aiming big in the south, led by the Prime Minister who would be devoting a lot of time campaigning in the five southern states and launch a slew of development schemes there in the coming two months.
The PM was in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday to launch projects worth Rs 20,000 crore, including a new airport. He will be in Kerala on Wednesday, where he will hold a big road show and a public meeting in Thrissur. The public meeting will see presence of nearly two lakh BJP women workers, party sources said. This will be a major statement by the BJP after the Congress said the saffron party has no base in the South.
It is a matter of immense joy that my first public programme of 2024 took place in the great state of Tamil Nadu and that too among our Yuva Shakti. Here are glimpses from the convocation at the Bharathidasan University in Tiruchirappalli. pic.twitter.com/hUi1JYFuUq
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 2, 2024
“Our aim is at least 40-50 seats in the Lok Sabha elections from the five southern states. We will retain our seats (25) in Karnataka as people have quickly lost faith in the Siddaramaiah government and we did not lose vote share in the assembly polls despite a loss. The BJP will also perform better than 2019 in Telangana when we won four Lok Sabha seats. We are also hopeful of winning some seats in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, as well as Andhra Pradesh,” a senior BJP leader told News18. He claimed that the rallies by top leaders such as Narendra Modi and Amit Shah during the poll campaign will have a strong ‘South focus’ and vote will be sought in the name of Modi.
The BJP will be fighting it alone in Tamil Nadu this time as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has broken its alliance with the BJP following the aggressive political posturing by state BJP chief Annamalai. However, the BJP has stuck to its guns and not replaced Annamalai as its state chief on demand of the AIADMK. In Kerala too, the BJP has been aggressively taking on both the Left and the Congress and plans to put up a strong candidate against Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad. In Telangana, the BJP suffered in the assembly elections due to its decision to drop Bandi Sanjay Kumar as its state chief before the polls. “But with the collapse of the BRS, the Lok Sabha election is now a direct fight between the Congress and BJP in Telangana,” the leader quoted above said.
The BJP is looking for the ‘South Push’ to reach the 350-seat target for its Lok Sabha campaign for 2024, and expand its base in the southern states.
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