Tamil Nadu remains evasive.for BJP in LS Polls 2024
Tamil Nadu remains evasive.for BJP in LS Polls 2024
In Tamil Nadu, besides a few unwavering supporters no enthusiasm among ordinary folks for the BJP.
Leave alone Ayodhya, the contrast with even Assam and North Bengal was starkly visible as the car moved from the Coimbatore airport towards the city.
In central Uttar Pradesh and even Assam and North Bengal, the saffron flag was unmissable. It was visible in shops, homes, cars, autos and even two-wheelers.
No such thing in southern Tamil Nadu. It’s quite bewildering that one week or so PM Modi was scheduled to address a rally and launch the BJP campaign in Tamil Nadu.
Many sitting in New Delhi and emitting on the BJP state president K Annamalai will make a big difference in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and would be dismayed by talking to people in Coimbatore, Tirupur, Madurai, Nagercoil and even Kanyakumari. It’s the Dravidian parties that rule the roost in Tamil Nadu.
A Coimbatore based senior journalist who preferred to be annonymous quipped that the chances of the BJP winning three to four seats in Tamil Nadu are as high as the Congress tally touching 150 Lok Sabha seats this time. Sure, miracles can happen.
More than 450 kilometres away from Coimbatore is Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India, the place where Swami Vivekananda contemplated the revival and resurgence of Hinduism. Hundreds and hundreds of tourists flocking to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial on the sea, but once again, the difference between Ayodhya and Kanyakumari was stark.
In Ayodhya, the new Ram Temple and the Saryu Ghat, thousands of the faithful were steeped in spiritual fervour. In Kanyakumari, they were just having fun as tourists.
Subhash, a long-time BJP worker having been associated with the youth wing of the party. candidly admits that the BJP leader Pon Radhakrishnan who won the Kanyakumari seat in 2014 has very little chance of winning this time.
He adds that the core voters of the VCK, an alliance partner of the DMK is a decisive 6% or so and will swing the seat towards that alliance. Apart from this, we Hindus are already less than 50% of the population here.
At this rate, but for us, deology and Sanatan Dharma are more importants and we will keep on fighting.
Subhash feels happy that the Modi regime is “finally” cracking the whip on missionary organisations dedicated to converting Indians to Christianity who get foreign funds as charitable NGOs.
Ptecisely, the persisting weakness of the BJP in Tamil Nadu is not because of Christian missionaries, the real reason is that it has failed to break through the walls of Tamil sub-nationalism built by Dravidian parties for decades. Hindi imposition and anti-Brahmanism along with Tamil self-respect and pride remain the dominant themes in politics. There can be little doubt that Prime Minister Modi has invested heavily is repeatedly displaying respect for the Tamil language, culture and traditions.
PM Modi genuinely appreciates the Tamil culture and they admire him for it. But at the same set of people also say that most other BJP leaders don’t deserve their admiration. Even people who found the statements of Udaynidhi Stalin on Sanatan Dharma needlessly offensive do not have much empathy with the BJP. A former AIDMK MLA met the author at the Cosmopolitan Club in Coimbatore.
According to him, the feeling that the BJP is an upper-caste North Indian party is so deeply embedded in the psyche of a majority of Tamil voters that they often refuse to see and understand that the BJP has changed fundamentally in the last two decades in India and is now a backward caste and class driven party. He says even the BJP Tamil Nadu leader Annamalai belongs to a backward caste. But the core voters of the DMK, the AIADMK and other regional caste-based parties like the VCK remain unimpressed.
Another reason why the exceptional growth of the BJP in east, central, west & north India has failed to materialise in a state like Tamil Nadu is that for ordinary Tamil voters, welfare schemes and freebies have been part of the political culture for decades.
The C-Voter opinion poll conducted in early February suggests a clean sweep for the DMK-led alliance.
Even AIDMK supporters expect that kind of a result because the opposition is fragmented.
News Edit K.V.Raman
