Towering challenges

Amid other things, the Centre-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party endeavored to lay the groundwork for its expansion in South India during its two-day National Executive Meeting held over last weekend. How far the move will benefit the party is a question better left on time. The focus on south is seen in the context of upcoming assembly elections in Telangana and Karnataka in 2023 and, more importantly, the 2024 general elections. The party has been working underground to strengthen its roots in the region, and now appears to cap all those efforts with decisive action to embolden its electoral prospects.

But unlike the northern belt, the south — replete with massive challenges — will be a tough nut to crack for the BJP.

The BJP’s current presence has been mostly limited to alliances and ‘friends’ in certain southern states. In Karnataka, it is already in power with Basavaraj Bommai as the CM, and in Andhra Pradesh, the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) government — which is eying to secure a special state status for Andhra Pradesh — has cordial ties with the BJP. In Tamil Nadu, though the party is in alliance with AIADMK in opposing the ruling DMK, and is trying to acquire the principal opposition space, the deeply rooted Dravidian politics ensures that breaking the jinx of Tamil politics is still a long game for the saffron party. Despite the alliance with the AIADMK, Tamil Nadu presents a mounting challenge for the BJP, or for that matter, any non-Dravidian party. In Telangana, K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) presents an upfront challenge to the BJP’s Central leadership. KCR’s ambitions extend far beyond Telangana state, and he is counted among the most vocal critics of the BJP. In the 2021 Kerala assembly elections, the NDA coalition was not only reduced to zero seats, its vote percentage had also declined significantly. Sandwiched between the ruling Left Democratic Front

(LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, the BJP hardly has any presence in the state. In general, it was almost evident from the National Executive Meeting in Hyderabad that the BJP’s core agenda in South India will only be a reflection of what the party has been pursuing in the rest of the country — nationalism and Hindutva, apart from the brand Modi. The party also claims to combine the development agenda, as it has been doing elsewhere. The Centre-ruling party’s stand has come very much on anticipated lines, as the BJP must maintain its vote-earning image it has built across the country. The new thing, however, was its decision to resort to minority appeasement in southern states with “a need for exploring new social equations within minority communities” and “to look at communities not as monoliths but with different interests and different positions within the social and economic hierarchies.” This new focus can be understood in two ways. Firstly, it can be a replication of how the BJP has gained support from the lower castes in the northern belt by being considerate of their concerns. Secondly, it may also be an attempt to bring forth the ‘differences’ among minority communities, and approach them for welfare delivery in a targeted manner. This may partially help the party stave off numerous allegations that it faces on the charge of being hostile to minorities. But the grand perception of being a pro-Hindutva party — which also, in common perception, is seen as an antithesis of Islam — will be the biggest hurdle in taking South Indian minorities in the “national fold.” Apart from these general shifts in the approach, the National Executive Meeting also threw some light on state-specific strategies. In Telangana, aware of the fact that KCR is directly challenging the top leadership at the national level, the BJP is trying to project a grand image of Narendra Modi to overshadow KCR’s persona. In Kerala, the BJP seeks to explore the Christian community to gain some footing in the state’s electoral space. In Tamil Nadu, where the DMK has clubbed both the AIADMK and the BJP under a single category — effectively trying to downsize BJP’s image — the BJP is trying to make an independent assertion while remaining in coalition. In Karnataka, the challenge for the party will be to defend its “gateway to the south” while Andhra Pradesh government remains a friendly contemporary. The party has been working to gain a foothold in the south but hurdles are huge and complex. It remains to be seen how much presence the BJP can register in southern India ahead of 2024 general elections.