Tireless toil for BJP to woo the Tamil voter

Manipur imbroglio and the dogged insistence of INDIA to push through its confrontational and competitive agenda notwithstanding, among its unending niggles, the Bharatiya Janata Party is still to come to a comfortable position about what it needs to do to win the support of Indians this side of the Vindhyas. If Karnataka was the state which they ruled and lost, Telangana seemed a bright spot for them to occupy, but now seems a mirage. The less said about Andhra Pradesh and Kerala affairs of the saffron party, the better.

Tamil Nadu, on its part, presents its own bundle of miseries for BJP, being the oddball among its neighbouring Dravidian cousins for its linguistic love and resistance to anything which goes against its psyche. Though it was among the first of the States into which BJP had entered in southern India, save for winning a few Assembly and Lok Sabha seats over four decades, the BJP was never a strong player.

Failing to see the same success which it had with monotonous regularity across the Hindi belt and beyond, with its time-tested cocktail of religion and politics, the BJP has tried out different combinations in the southern state, which for them, is ripe for exploitation, as it is devoid of the tall Dravidian icons like M Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa who were battle-scarred veterans and kept the national party on a leash.

The latest campaign weapon which BJP has taken up is the padayatra politics in Tamil Nadu and it has commandeered the young IPS officer-turned- party chief K Annamalai to move around the State with a slogan ‘ En Mann En Makkal’ (My Land, My People). Annamalai would be covering the entire lot of Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu, 39 in all, before Pongal 2024. While none doubts the immense recall value of a walkathon, which has also turned out to be the winning strategy for many parties in India, especially in the southern region, the initial reports about how BJP’s alliance partner – AIADMK – has reacted shows that the saffronites have to work harder to win the Tamil votes. For the present, E Palaniswamy of AIADMK has agreed to be an NDA constituent and is seen more and more in Delhi circles whenever called. This is in contrast to the situation, a few months ago, when he was elected the General Secretary of his party, giving him the ownership of the MGR-founded outfit, five decades ago. He went on a collision course with the local BJP leaders and both of them decided to shed any pretense about being partners, engaging in a free-for-all, much to the glee of the common rival, DMK.

The ever-energetic Amit Shah, who seems to be battling health concerns, has once again visibly given the push to the State unit to roll on the juggernaut, which would go all over the length and breadth of Tamil Nadu championing the saffron cause. Will the Tamil Nadu voter be taken in by the blitzkrieg? We will know shortly, as Lok Sabha polls now seem nearer than ever before.