The myth that the country’s south and east were virtually impregnable for the BJP has long been busted—albeit partially.
In Karnataka, the BJP is entrenched by itself and through ally Janata Dal (Secular). The JD(S), though singed by corruption charges and discredited for perpetuating dynastic rule, has a captive vote bank. In Telangana, the BJP has made considerable strides despite the incongruence in its vote shares in the 2024 Lok Sabha (35.4 percent) and 2023 Assembly (13.9 percent) polls. In Andhra Pradesh, the national party has a strong ally in the TDP. The BJP ran a coalition government in Puducherry with the All India NR Congress, a breakaway from the Congress whose leader and incumbent Chief Minister N Rangasamy quit in 2008 following differences with the Gandhis.
In the east, the BJP wrenched Odisha from the BJD in the last Assembly election and is ensconced in the state for now. In West Bengal, it has edged out the Left as the principal opposition in the legislature.
Yet, for all intents and purposes, Kerala has been a no-go for the BJP, which has just had one MLA so far, the veteran O Rajagopal. The victory of V V Rajesh as Thiruvananthapuram’s mayor last December was celebrated as a breakthrough that can provide a base to build political capital.
Given this backdrop, what’s at stake for the principal actors in next month’s state polls?
On the face of it, the regional parties have higher stakes—more than the mainline BJP and Congress—because they have invested everything they can summon in these states and owe their raison d’être to the turfs they hold. Take away West Bengal from Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee or Tamil Nadu from DMK overlord M K Stalin, and these leaders would be hollowed out. The Congress is perhaps proactive in Kerala because one of the Gandhis owes her Lok Sabha seat to this state. Meanwhile, the BJP is furiously on the job in West Bengal, Assam and Kerala, though slightly less so in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Watching the BJP’s steps—or missteps—in West Bengal, it is apparent that it has pulled out all stops to corral Banerjee, leaving her with no time or inclination to visit neighbouring Assam even once. Laying siege to Banerjee is retribution for the BJP being ‘denied’ a win in the last state polls after its quantum leap in the 2019 parliamentary elections. In 2021, the BJP’s slogan of a Bengal poised for “poriborton” (change) became a war cry. But the BJP was left with only 77 of the 294 assembly seats. Its ace political strategist Amit Shah has still not reconciled with the indifferent showing, according to insiders.
This time, the BJP has employed tactics beyond the realm of conventional electioneering. Trinamool has charged that, prodded by the Centre, the Election Commission deleted a large number of voters from the rolls in Banerjee’s strongholds. The transfer of Governor R N Ravi from Chennai to Kolkata, and the relocation of top bureaucrats believed to be close to the Trinamool regime are aspects of BJP’s Operation Siege, intended to seriously curtail Banerjee’s room for possible manoeuvres to swing voters.
This leaves Banerjee to play the game through conventional means like upping the emotional quotient on regionalism and the Centre’s “assault” on the state’s hallowed culture, language and pride. The BJP’s central leaders have committed their share of serious gaffes by exhibiting a cavalier attitude towards the names and legacies of Bengal’s revered icons.
The other factor at work is Bengal’s changing demography, especially in the urban areas populated by migrants from Bihar and Jharkhand. The ‘Bihar effect’—manifest in the NDA’s sweep in the assembly polls—is cited as a reason why the migrant Hindu votes could tilt towards the BJP. Loss in Bengal will whittle Banerjee’s clout nationally and diminish her hopes of leading the amorphous INDIA bloc in 2029.
In the south, the DMK seems well placed as the opposition is in disarray and the BJP has not yet opened its cards. In the prelude to the elections, the BJP pulled out several arrows from its quiver to reach out to Tamil Nadu’s voters—installing the Sengol, the golden sceptre that symbolised righteous rule in the Chola kingdom, on the Lok Sabha Speaker’s podium, organising annual Kashi Tamil Sangamams at Varanasi, and replacing Edwin Lutyens’ statue with C Rajagopalachari’s at Rashtrapati Bhavan. But the Brahmanical overtones in the Kashi congregations and Rajaji’s statue were unmistakable and out of depth with hardcore Dravida Kazhagam politics permeating Tamil Nadu, which the BJP hasn’t cracked so far.
Kerala is probably the only state left with the Congress to prove its salience at the helm of the UDF—if it manages to unseat the LDF. Like the Left Front in Bengal, the Congress has been relegated to a has-been in the eastern state.
If the east is prized territory, the BJP can celebrate the steady gains it made in Assam and the footprints it seeks to leave in the other northeastern states on the back of its allies. However, after Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, Assam is where the RSS’s ideology effectively worked to the BJP’s advantage, unlike in Kerala, where the Sangh’s persistent work in the northern region never translated into votes for the political progeny. The BJP not only succeeded in trouncing the Congress, which was orphaned after former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s death, but managed to marginalise the once-formidable Asom Gana Parishad that was born from the All Assam Students’ Union agitation against “illegal” immigrants.
Like many other promising regional parties, the AGP’s central plank was co-opted by the BJP, which has since appropriated the issue of alleged Bangladeshi infiltration and taken it to a different level with the Hindu-Muslim divide. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, a Congress migrant to the BJP, left no stone unturned to paint the entire Muslim community as an adversary worthy of elimination. The Congress’s haplessness against Sarma’s campaign is evident even with Tarun Gogoi’s son Gaurav opting for an assembly ticket over his Parliament membership from Jorhat. The defection of MP Pradyut Bordoloi and former state Congress chief Bhupen Borah to the BJP made the power shift clearer.
To sum up, the elections are a litmus test for Banerjee and Stalin because Bengal and Tamil Nadu are thought of as the last outposts stalling the BJP’s overweening ambition. For the BJP, the challenge lies in unseating Trinamool. Meanwhile, the Congress, daunted in its fight to wrest Assam, will have to prove its worth by gaining Kerala and possibly Puducherry.
Radhika Ramaseshan | Columnist and political commentator
(Views are personal)