By ACJ-Bloomberg (Batch 2023-24)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will increase its presence in Tamil Nadu in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, according to voters in Chennai Central constituency, a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party stronghold. This voter sentiment could help the BJP make inroads into the southern state where it secured only one seat in the 2019 elections.
“We like Modi. The DMK has left religion behind, and that just doesn’t work,” said Roopa Srikanth, a voter in Chennai Central.
Many other voters shared Srikanth’s opinion.These voters, who did not wish to be named, said they were voting based on the work done by political parties over the last five years in the country. These voters said Modi’s efforts on religious and national integration stood out.
Educated and affluent voters will determine the BJP’s success in Tamil Nadu, said Abhay Tilak, director of the Indian School of Political Economy, Pune. “The beneficiaries of the BJP’s policies over the last decade are only the affluent and educated classes, and upper castes, and their turnout might help the BJP today.”
Tilak said, typically, urban voter turnout is lower than rural voter turnout, and if this trend continues, then the BJP is unlikely to secure seats in the state. “The Ram Mandir appeal has fallen flat in south Indian states, because the Ramayana is perceived differently there,” he said.
Prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22 this year, fulfilling a key promise from the BJP’s 2019 election manifesto.
Tilak said Tamil Nadu’s urban population is unlikely to aid the BJP, as a majority of the state comprises the rural middle class. This part of the population is likely to vote for regional parties, he said.
Dayanidhi Maran, a three-time Lok Sabha member for the DMK and a household name in Tamil Nadu is competing against Vinoj Selvam, a 34-year-old BJP leader in Chennai Central, one of the 39 seats in the state. While BJP is contesting from 23 seats, its alliance has fielded candidates in the remaining 16 seats.
An email sent to BJP’s Selvam did not get an immediate response.
The BJP wants to win 25% vote share but it won’t, said Dr. Vignesh Rajahmani, a political consultant who worked with the Congress party and wrote a thesis on DMK at King’s College London. DMK and ADMK together with their alliances, have an 85% vote share since 1971.
The two Dravidian-Tamil majors and other regional parties have promoted the Dravidian-Tamil ethos at the grass root level for over a 100 years. BJP, however, is an outsider party with very different ethos. So, the only party from which they can steal the share is AIADMK.
The BJP will increase its vote share, but will not secure seats in Tamil Nadu, said Neeraj Hatekar, an economist and professor at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.
BJP candidates in Tamil Nadu, however, are confident of winning more than one seat this time around.
“We are confident, but I cannot tell the number, but I know we can win a number of seats,” said Tamilisai Soundararajan, BJP candidate from South Chennai. Soundararajan is the former governor of Telangana and Puducherry.
Karti Chidambaram, the Indian National Congress candidate from Sivaganga, however, said it is unlikely that BJP will get a 25% vote share in Tamil Nadu. “See there is no bar in fantasising, people can fantasise whatever they want.”
The DMK and the Indian National Congress party, the biggest opposition party in the country, have decided to form a coalition in Tamil Nadu as the I.N.D.I Alliance. The Congress will contest elections from nine seats in Tamil Nadu in alliance with the DMK, the current ruling party in the state.