The trend line for political analysts on poll prospects for decades has been that the BJP has no stand-alone chance in the entire South India. In Maharashtra the party has to work with the Shiv Sena, in Andhra piggyback on TDP, in Tamil Nadu seek an alliance with either of the Dravida parties, in Karnataka the dominant Lingayat community decides, in Kerala the party is squeezed between the UDF and the LDF.
The scene seems to have dramatically changed almost overnight with the BJP announcing its prime ministerial candidate on the one hand and the frustration of local people with the politics of convenience of the regional parties and their satraps. Also to be factored in is the collapse of the Congress in the region due to its regional leadership’s failures and the overpowering inflation. Besides the southerners are reading every day how BJP-led state governments north of the Vindhyas and in Gujarat are making waves that led to consecutive electoral successes.
The fractured structure of a so far dominant Congress is best witnessed in Andhra Pradesh. The powerful demand for division of Andhra and separation of Telangana saw the party surrender its dominance in the region to the 10-year-old Telangana Rashtra Samiti.
Today, the Congress finds itself caught in the pulls and pushes its final surrender to the Telangana demand has created. Even before the decision to divide was taken it had slipped on the challenge posed by the YSR Congress, failing to measure the popularity of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy whose YSR Congress swept the bypolls despite his incarceration. Today, the Congress finds its mishandling has cost it loss of popular support both in Telangana and the rest of Andhra.
The state also continues to be an epicentre of Naxalism on the one hand and a recruiting area for jihadi groups on the other, exposing the soft political core of a state ruled by the Congress for the major part of post-independent India. Thus, it stands to reason that in the general election the focus is bound to be on a party that can project a nationwide agenda of unity and security and the BJP alone fits into this demand.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK has read the writing on the wall and declared it will not have any truck with the Congress despite its nine-year-long partnership with the Sonia Gandhi-led party. The ruling AIADMK led by chief minister J Jayalalithaa seems to have retained its huge popularity. The party and government leader has not hesitated to demonstrate her regard for Modi from day one of her assuming power in 2011.
After all, if India is seen as a strong power and its government as determined to bear its tremendous weight to counter the pinpricks some of its neighbours cause, issues like Indian fishermen’s fishing rights will find an automatic solution.
Behind the BJP’s decision to contest all the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala lies the grass-roots evaluation that the two-front politics in the state is breaking down. The ruling UDF led by an enfeebled Congress is facing internal trouble over the larger than life Muslim League’s demand for more LS seats. The Christian-dominated Kerala Congress (Mani and other groups) is caught in a struggle of Christian farmers of the lower Western Ghats against the findings of an expert panel that their encroachments into the forest land is threatening the ecology of the coastal state.
Powerful Hindu outfits like the SNDP and NSS have openly expressed their resentment at being squeezed by a rising tide of Muslim irredentism. The jihadis are running almost a parallel government in parts of Kerala imposing their sharia writ through violence. Both the Congress and Marxists are competing to appease the Muslim leader Mahdani incarcerated in Bangalore for his alleged part in the stadium bombing and looking after his health needs. Not surprisingly the anti-Modi propaganda is not finding the market the Congress expected. Consider the Kerala orthodox church head’s statement that there should not be a priori negative attitude against Modi. So long as the Gujarat chief minister could ensure religious tolerance and good governance there should be no objection to his political ascendancy, he added. Also the Kerala Congress (Mani group) MLA P C George, who is the chief whip of the ruling UDF, inaugurated the marathon to collect funds for the Sardar Patel statue and released T-shirts depicting Modi and the BJP.
The Congress is facing internal trouble over the SNDP and the NSS demand that chief minister Oommen Chandy be replaced by KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala. It is a direct consequence of the widespread impression that the Hindu majority is getting squeezed by the rising clout of the Muslim League and the Christian denominations, both enriched by remittances from expatriate Keralites, who gain a major part of the $20 billion annual inflow into the state.
In Maharashtra, the Congress-led government has become a byword for scams. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has worsened the party’s image by rejecting the Justice Patel Commission report on the Adarsh housing scam. The probe has squarely found former CM Ashok Chavan and other Congress and NCP leaders guilty of corruption and worse.
After eight years of Congress rule, the stage is set for a change. The trend would be clearly visible in 2014 with the BJP-Shiv Sena combine having a clear lead.
The Karnataka scene is evolving after the BJP lost to Congress mainly due to the bulk votes B S Yeddyurappa took away with his regional party formation. BSY is now in a remorseful mood and is calling for return to BJP.
As for the ruling Congress the resentment within the “outsider” being made CM has begun raise its head. The third force in Karnataka, that of former PM Deve Gowda and his son, seemingly is looking at a yet to be formed Third Front. As some wit said, Gowda cannot give up his dream of returning to Delhi with a PM’s cap.
Naturally, he has a right to dream—after all his tenure at Race Course Road lasted 12 months, slightly better than that of Charan Singh who also prided himself like Gowda as the former prime minister who did not dare to face parliament even once. No wonder in our democracy every earthworm has a right to see himself as Nagaraja.
Balbir Punj is National Vice President, BJP.
E-mail: punjbalbir@gmail.com