Carnatic Cauldron: BJP Faces Uphill Battle In South India’s Elections

Amidst tall pine trees, paddy fields, Hoysala temples and melodies of Carnatic music lies South Karnataka. But days ahead of polling on April 26, the region looked deprived. The Cauvery River was running dry. So were the hopes of farmers.

Devoid of adequate rainfall for over six months, there was a palpable anger among parched farmers against the ruling Congress. “We want Devegowda back”, was the overall sentiment. The farmers had given their clarion call to support the Janata Dal (Secular), which has allied with the BJP in this election. Barely a few weeks after their fingers were inked, it rained heavily. And then, a political storm hit the state.

When a 47-year-old woman from Hassan in South Karnataka described in detail how she was allegedly sexually assaulted by the former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s grandson Prajwal Revanna, the grandeur that was attached to the regional party fell in the eyes of locals.

Since then, several complaints have surfaced against Revanna, accusing him of abusing multiple women. Pen drives reportedly containing videos of women being coerced into sex are doing the rounds in Hassan, and they allegedly contain visuals of Revanna as well. Police booked both Prajwal and his father, H D Revanna, for sexual harassment and criminal intimidation.

While Revanna is still absconding, the anger among Vokkaligas—the farming community—seems to have now shifted against the BJP-JD(S) combine. “The BJP knew of these complaints against Revanna months before the polls. How could they still give him a ticket?” ask farmer leaders from the Hassan district unit of the Karnataka Prantha Raita Sangha.

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The BJP-led NDA has set a target of winning 400 Lok Sabha seats this time—a feat that would be difficult to achieve if the South Indian states, especially Karnataka, where the party has made significant gains, don’t rally behind the party. The southern states send about 131 MPs to the Lok Sabha, and the BJP managed to win only 29 in the 2019 General Elections—25 in Karnataka and four in Telangana. The saffron party has largely been absent in Andhra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Tried and Tested Strategies

The battle for winning power has gotten shriller amid campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections. When Neha Hiremath, 23, was stabbed to death at her college in Hubballi by her former classmate, Fayaz Khandunayak, on April 18, BJP leaders invoked the ‘love jihad’ narrative to polarise voters, explains Shivasundar, a senior journalist and activist. “It could be a sign of desperation wherein the party realises that winning over 400 seats would be difficult,” he says. But such polarisation is also a tried and tested strategy, Shivasundar adds.

The party’s go-to hardline Hindutva pitch hasn’t provided them much dividend in Karnataka. During last year’s Assembly elections, the saffron party made desperate attempts to polarise the Vokkaliga community with the infamous narrative that two fictional Vokkaliga characters—Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda—and not the British, had killed Tipu Sultan. Then, it scrapped the four per cent reservation for Muslims and distributed it between the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats. However, it did not help the party much.

But soon after the first phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi began accusing the Opposition, led by the Congress, of appeasing the Muslim minority community. While addressing a rally on April 12, he claimed that the Congress wanted to distribute wealth to “infiltrators” and to “those who have many children”. Although these speeches weren’t made in any of the five South Indian states, the narrative trickled down to the region eventually through social media.

“For the people of Karnataka, social welfare and economic growth matter more than politics of polarisation,” says Lakshman Cheeranahalli, an advocate and activist in Mandya.

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Amid the rush of election season, in the quiet corners of villages in Karnataka, women voters praise the Shakti scheme of the Congress. The scheme had promised “free travel to all women throughout the state” in government-run buses. Bus stations in the state are now filled with women of all ages who are either on their way to temples, their native towns, or for tours around the Mysuru palace or simply travelling for leisure. A recent survey on the impact of the Shakti scheme revealed that women are saving up to Rs 200 daily and the scheme has increased their frequency of bus travel. They also feel safer travelling in buses after the scheme’s introduction.

In the first phase of polling in Karnataka on April 26, women voters outnumbered men in five of the 14 constituencies, according to data shared by the Election Commission (EC). The percentage of women voters was higher in rural areas than in urban constituencies, the data showed. Amidst anger over the BJP’s selection of Revanna as a candidate, this trend of rural women voters coming out in great numbers to show gratitude to the Congress’ guarantees can change the wave that is usually in favour of the BJP during general elections, analysts say.

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In the Dravidian land of Tamil Nadu as well, stoking communal sentiments has been the BJP’s strategy to gain traction in the region. Since 1984, with V Balachandran’s victory as an independent candidate backed by the Hindu Munnani, and later in 1996 with C. Velayutham’s election as the first BJP MLA from Padmanabhapuram constituency in Kanyakumari district, the BJP has been striving for over four decades to establish a foothold in Tamil Nadu’s political landscape.

The districts where the BJP has a strong foothold—Kanyakumari and Coimbatore—have a history marked by riots and bombings.

The victory of V Balachandran in Kanyakumari district is attributed to the communal riot that happened in Kanyakumari in 1982. The unrest stemmed from rumours alleging harassment of Hindu women by a group of Christian youth during a temple festival in Mandaikadu, resulting in the deaths of nine individuals.

Much like Kanyakumari, Coimbatore has been a stronghold of the Hindu Munnani since the early 1980s. In 1998, Coimbatore experienced a series of bombings allegedly orchestrated by the Islamic terrorist group Al-Umma, which further bolstered the BJP’s support base. C P Radhakrishnan of the BJP won the Coimbatore Parliament seat by a significant margin of one lakh votes.

However, the BJP’s triumph in the region has been short-lived. The party misses the fundamental point in the political narrative of South India, particularly Tamil Nadu, says J Jayarenjan, a member of the State Planning Commission of Tamil Nadu. The party’s Hindutva brand of politics does not have the negotiating capacity in Tamil Nadu’s political ground, says Jayarenjan, who is also a scholar of Dravidian politics. “The way in which this discourse is framed is completely different in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The very negotiating table is different. As a party having its foundation in Hindutva identity, it is difficult to set up a discourse where the political narrative is built on anti-Brahmin sentiments,” says Dr Jayarenjan.

He observes that anything that comes up with Brahminism will automatically be rejected in Tamil Nadu. The experiment by the AIADMK aligning with the BJP proves this point as well.

Regional Interests and State Players

Unlike Karnataka, where regional parties have struggled to flourish, the sibling states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have historically supported regional players, while also being fairly outside the reach of the saffron party. Born out of regional movements and demands for statehood, both the Telugu states have often backed local leaders, including late YS Rajasekhar Reddy, his son Jagan Mohan Reddy, Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrashekhar Rao, while the BJP-led NDA continues to rely on the popularity of Modi.

Even until KCR’s defeat in the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections, many analysts had predicted his success owing to his emotive role in the statehood movement. But for the unemployed youth, farmers and women, Congress leaders, including Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, seemed more approachable on the ground. They interacted with government job aspirants about what problems they are facing. Tenant farmers who haven’t been recognised by the KCR government finally found a place in the Congress manifesto.

On the other hand, the BJP has continued to rely on the popularity of Modi during the Assembly and the General Elections as well, according to a pre-poll survey conducted by People’s Pulse. “They (BJP) continue to talk about Ram Mandir during their campaigns but how does it affect us?” asks Deekonda Rajayya, a construction labourer from North Telangana.

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A quick look at how each party has fared over the years in Lok Sabha elections in these Telugu states shows the dominance of regional parties. Of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh, the YSRCP, led by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, swept 22 in 2019, restricting its main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP), led by Chandrababu Naidu, to just three. In Telangana, the BRS won nine of the 17 seats, followed by the BJP which won four seats. The Congress was restricted to three seats and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) to one—a trend that is likely to change in favour of the Congress, especially after the party’s win in last year’s Assembly elections.

BJP’s Game of Defections

In Kerala’s fiercely contested political arena, a trickle of defections towards the BJP seems to haunt the grand old party and the Left that have been dominant in the state’s politics.

Shobha Surendran, the Kerala state vice-president and the national executive member of the BJP, who is also a candidate in Alappuzha constituency against CPI (M)’s sitting MP Arif M A and Congress’s KC Venugopal, made an explosive disclosure three days before polling. She said that the BJP had a discussion with E P Jayarajan, the LDF convenor and central committee member of the CPI (M), regarding his entry to the BJP. Her statement created a political storm when Jayarajan, on the very day of polling, admitted in public that he had met Prakash Javadekar at his son’s residence which was a ‘friendly and personal’ meet. Though he claimed that politics had not come into discussion and it was ‘personal’, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan criticised Jayarajan, saying that he should not have done that.

The disclosure by Jayarajan put the party in huge embarrassment. “The central argument that the CPI (M) and the LDF emphasise in their campaign against the Congress in Kerala is that even if voters choose the Congress, there’s no assurance of their loyalty to the party. The chance of them joining the BJP cannot be ruled out. We posit that for those seeking a change at the national level, electing LDF candidates from Kerala, committed to the INDIA coalition governing the Centre, is a more dependable option. Jayarajan’s actions have dealt a blow to this trust,” says a state committee member of the CPI (M).

However, the defection of Congress members to the BJP is not as shocking as that from the Left in Kerala. Hence, a list of names released by Shobha Surendran, who have had discussions with the BJP regarding their entry did not attract much media attention. According to sources, the BJP had a round of talks even with the KPCC president K Sudhakaran and former opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala. However, the Congress leaders neither denied nor confirmed this speculation.

The BJP’s attempt to recruit members from other parties and eminent personalities is not a new phenomenon in Kerala. “In Kerala, people are hesitant to quit their mother party and join the BJP not because of any ideological reasons, but for the reason that it does not go well in Kerala. People would not accept it. Their political future will be at risk. If we take the cases of even the former bureaucrats who joined the BJP, we can see how the public perception about them has changed. They have been trolled heavily and have become sorry figures,” says Prithipal, an office bearer of the RSS in Kerala.

(This appeared in print as 'Carnatic Cauldron')