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It is not that the 14 February tragedy at Pulwama and the subsequent air strikes do not electorally matter in the southern states. It certainly does evoke emotions, but the language of jingoistic Hindu nationalism is lost in translation in large parts of south India, and hence it is not as potent an electoral weapon for the BJP as it is north India.
The presence of strong regional parties that have thrived on powerful linguistic identities makes for a stronger barrier to the BJP’s Hindu nationalist narrative, and the idea of India falls into a uniquely state-specific regional prism, in each of the five southern states and one union territory.
Given that Prime Minister Modi and the BJP itself have only a limited appeal, the elections will boil down to arithmetic, alliances and economic and social issues in the 130 parliamentary seats that are spread over Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
In 2014, the BJP won 21 of the 130, and 17 of those came from Karnataka, the only state in south India where the BJP has a dominant presence, and wins seats on its own without an ally. Among the rest, the party won 3 from an undivided Andhra Pradesh – 2 from Andhra and 1 from the Telangana region – where it had an alliance with the TDP – and 1 in Tamil Nadu.
This is the only southern state in which the BJP is part of an alliance. Its hopes here hinge on the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK).
BJP by itself will contest in just 5 seats. Given that there is severe anti-incumbency against the AIADMK and the party is split into two factions, it may not be able to bolster the BJP even in the Kanyakumari seat.
It certainly doesn’t seem to be in a position to make any gains in Tamil Nadu, but its lone seat from the state is certainly under threat.
Given that Kerala is firmly polarised between the Left and Congress-led fronts, the BJP has managed to put up a show only in the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary seat. In 2014, BJP’s candidate O Rajagopal fought hard but lost the seat by a narrow 15,000-vote margin to Congress’s Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor.
In both these states the BJP has never won a seat without an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and in 2019 it has lost the most dependable southern ally it had. However, unlike in the past, the TDP is restricted only to the 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh, and seems to have lost all relevance in 17 seats of Telangana, where the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) holds sway.
In Telangana, the BJP’s Bandaru Dattatreya has won the Secunderabad constituency four times in the past, but only as a TDP ally. While the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti is seen to have a tacit understanding with the BJP, there is no open alliance and that could mean that the lone seat may be under threat.
In the last three parliamentary elections, the BJP has been the dominant party by a huge margin in the state, and won 18, 19 and 17 of the 28 seats in 2004, 09 and 14 respectively. However, it will, for the first time, face a Congress-JD(S) alliance and this is why the grassroots arithmetic is shaky for the BJP.
In effect, while the Congress is spread out across the state, the BJP is confined to less than 25 seats, and in the remaining seats, like Mandya, Hassan or Kolar in the old Mysuru region, the Congress fights the JD(S) with the BJP at a distant third. This why the Congress vote shares may be close to the BJP and sometimes even more, but in terms of number of seats, the Congress has been stuck with single digits.
As a regional party with a concentrated caste base, the JD(S) had only polled around 11 to 13 percent vote in the last three parliamentary elections and ended up with a maximum of 3 seats. It won only 2 seats in 2014. However, in successive assembly elections, the JD(S) has polled 18 percent votes or above.
Even if it maintains its 2014 vote shares, the combined vote of the JD(S) and Congress could well be daunting for the BJP in about 18 seats. The recent by-elections, when the Congress wrested the Ballari seat from the BJP, is an example of the power that a JD(S)-Congress alliance has on the ground.
If the arithmetic works out on the ground like it does on paper then the BJP may stay ahead only in its stronghold, by a smaller margin, and the Congress and JD(S) can make a serious dent to the BJP numbers.
In the final analysis, the BJP, by itself, is on a weak southern wicket and may well end up with less than half what it won in 2014. However, it could have potential post poll allies from regional forces, especially from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
(The writer is an independent journalist. He can be reached @TMVRaghav . This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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Published: 22 Mar 2019,05:31 PM IST