25

Jun

BJP Fails To Understand Political Undercurrent in Tamil Nadu

image

N Sathiya Moorthy

A person with glasses and a white shirt Description automatically generated

Chennai, 25 June 2024 

Going by the final outcome of the Lok Sabha polls, the temptation would be to conclude that the ruling BJP at the Centre is losing hold across the country. No, it is not. Even while losing seats in mainstay Uttar Pradesh, the party did sweep all seats in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. But it is actually in the southern states where the saffron party has made inroads, but sustaining the same over the medium and long terms are not going to be easy – and for obvious reasons.

Barring Dravidian Tamil Nadu, where the pro-BJP sections of the national media conveniently fudged voting figures to give the losing party and alliance a substantial share, it has actually recorded gains elsewhere. As has been happening since the early commencement of the poll fever even last year viz Tamil Nadu, the media repeated state BJP president K Annamalai’s claims that the party had polled 11-plus per cent vote-share compared to the traditional three per cent.

Annamalai’s avarice or need to justify his failed leadership is understandable, but for the national media to literally eat out of the hands had begun even with the ‘Sanatana Dharma controversy’ involving DMK minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, son of chief minister M K Stalin. After providing for the proven vote-shares of the BJP’s old and new NDA allies in the state from their past performance(s), the party’s share should hover around five per cent or even less.

Article at a Glance

 

The BJP's performance in the Lok Sabha polls may seem like a loss, but it's not entirely true. While the party lost seats in Uttar Pradesh, it swept all seats in Madhya Pradesh and made inroads in southern states.

In Tamil Nadu, the BJP recorded gains, but sustaining them will be challenging. The party misunderstood the political undercurrent in Tamil Nadu, where regional parties are strong.

The BJP needs to address issues of "Tamil pride" and focus on the common man's aspirations, rather than relying on a pro-Hindutva agenda. Corruption and religion are not key issues in Tamil Nadu, and the party must adopt a changed approach to Dravidian politics.

The BJP's failure to understand and acknowledge this has led to its repeated losses in the state.

There is a basic political undercurrent that the BJP has not understood in the Tamil Nadu context. Rather, it misunderstood it. In central India, where the regional parties were already strong, the BJP replaced national rival Congress, was losing grip with the death of three leaders in a row – namely, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, but not in that order. Elsewhere, say, Karnataka, for instance, the party sought to replace the unified Janata Dal, which was an amalgam of erstwhile Congress (O) partners from the post-Emergency era, leaving behind a rump JD(U), which was confined to the south and identified with H D Deve Gowda and his JD(U).

It’s only in states like Maharashtra and Punjab, where the BJP had to compromise with old-time regional allies like the Shiv Sena and Akali Dal. And like the Congress predecessor, an arrogant BJP, after sweeping the nation, did not know how to maintain and sustain alliances with regional allies. The same also happened in the case of the post-Jaya AIADMK in Tamil Nadu as the national leadership thought that here too, they could twist and turn the regional party, using the good offices of the ED, IT and CBI, and have an upper-hand over the short, medium and long-terms.

Three in a row

The AIADMK under former chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami too squirmed and the resultant split caught the BJP on the wrong foot. Even after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had campaigned in the state on eight different occasions, the party drew a blank – this time without a major ally. On the two immediate two past occasions, the BJP-NDA under Modi lost the state, first to the ruling AIADMK under chief minister Jayalalithaa (2014) and to the rival DMK Opposition in the post-Jaya parliamentary polls of 2019.

It is not going to be easy for the BJP to ‘win over’ the Tamil minds without addressing issues of ‘Tamil pride’, where the controversial NEET scam can prove to be worse than the party might have bargained for.  By keeping the DMK in focus through pro-Hindutva agenda did not help as the average Tamil voter is both religiously pious and electorally universalised.

Because the DMK and the AIADMK are equally matched and other sub-regional parties founded over the past two or three decades had lost steam even before the ‘neo-BJP’ sought more than the limited allotted space, it has continued to fail. Corruption and religion are not issues in Tamil Nadu, but addressing common man’s aspirations at the individual level, in ways that he can touch and feel is the name of the game. The BJP has to understand it first, and then acknowledge and accept it, too, and then adopt a changed approach to Dravidian politics than through the past several decades, from the days of the Jana Sangh past.

________________________________

  • Share:

About Us

We must explain to you how all seds this mistakens idea off denouncing pleasures and praising pain was born and I will give you a completed accounts..

Contact Us

Contact Info

  • 70, Gyan Khand- 4, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad. Uttar Pradesh.
  • +91-9810533682
  • info@mediamap.co.in
  • Week Days: 09.00 to 18.00 Sunday: Closed