Modi woos the south for pan-India ride to power
Few doubt Narendra Modi will win re-election in India’s marathon polls starting this month — the question is how far the prime minister will succeed in wooing the south.
After a decade in power, Modi hopes to significantly increase BJP’s 55 percent parliamentary majority—and to do that requires winning in southern states. Modi’s BJP won 303 of 543 seats in the lower house of parliament in 2019, but mainly from the Hindi-speaking north.
Repeated rallies
Holding repeated rallies in the south, Modi has sought to win new voters, offering his “topmost respect” to the south’s Tamil culture and language, including wearing the region’s traditional white wrap, waving from open-topped convoys in flower-strewn parades.
Modi has also launched a social media handle in Tamil, to win over those who see the BJP dominated by Hindi speakers.
But the BJP’s push faces serious headwinds in the south, where voters typically back regional parties strongly rooted in appeals to social justice, and Modi’s Hindu nationalism holds little appeal.
“We give respect to people not depending on religion or caste,” 38-year-old Abu Backer, a business owner in Tamil Nadu, said proudly.
‘Harmonised’ religions
Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Tamil Nadu’s information technology minister — commonly known by his initials PTR — said he hated seeing “polarisation” in politics.
Rajan, from Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party — which won 23 parliament seats in 2019 — said he was proud of the south’s long history of “harmonised” mixedfaith communities.
In the last polls, BJP won just over a fifth of seats — 29 out of 129 — across the five southern states. In wooing the south, it hopes to wrest the credentials of being a pan-India party from the opposition Congress.