Finally a saffron spark in Tamil Nadu

A few weeks back, Congress party prince Rahul Gandhi took the center stage in the parliament and made some bold yet ultimately dopey assertions. Mechanically choreographed by a team of PR representatives, Rahul claimed that BJP will never rule in Tamil Nadu. However, the reverse Midas touch that Rahul possesses has now helped BJP gain massive ground in the state – all in under a month. 

In the just-concluded Tamil Nadu Urban Civic Polls, the DMK may have emerged victorious, but it is the saffron party of BJP that has grabbed the news headlines and sent the warning bells ringing by becoming the third-largest party behind ally AIADMK.  

Just a few days back Rahul Gandhi held out a prophecy in Parliament that the BJP will never rule Tamilnadu. I hope ULB elections have disabused him of such notions. BJP is now the 3rd largest party after DMK and AIADMK, ahead of the Congress. BJP won in areas it hadn’t won ever!

— Amit Malviya (मोदी का परिवार) (@amitmalviya) February 23, 2022

Reportedly, BJP went into the elections all alone for the first time and managed to give stiff competition to DMK in several seats. In the last edition, BJP had secured four seats in the corporation. However, this time it has bagged 22.  

Similarly, in the municipality, the party had bagged 37 seats last time, which has improved now to 56. In town panchayat, the saffron party had netted 185 seats in the previous election, which it has raised to 230. Most importantly, BJP polled 5.33 per cent of the total votes polled throughout Tamil Nadu, despite only contesting 43% of the total seats. 

DMK's landslide victory in the Tamil Nadu urban local body elections has obscured another interesting headline. The BJP moving into second place in many areas, trumping even the AIADMK in many places.

— Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) February 23, 2022

State BJP president K Annamalai thanked party workers for the performance while talking about becoming the third alternative in the state. 

Annamalai was quoted as saying by ANI, “The BJP has emerged as the third party in Tamil Nadu. I thank the leaders who worked hard for the victory of our candidates,”

Today results of #UrbanLocalBodyElection came. BJP got a great victory. It has entered many places where we were not there earlier. We are making Lotus bloom in every nook and corner: Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai pic.twitter.com/XsnCt0Ecg6

— ANI (@ANI) February 22, 2022

The BJP chief also remarked how the party had pushed DMK to the edge in the capital city, and if AIADMK and BJP had collaborated, Stalin’s party may have been obliterated. He said, “In Chennai, in around 30 wards, the BJP candidates have finished as runners up. In the Kongu region, the vote share secured by the AIADMK and the BJP proves that if both parties come together, the Kongu region will be ours,” 

The BJP’s Tamil Nadu in-charge and national general secretary CT Ravi echoed this view after the results were announced. Ravi said, “This is the first time that we have fought polls in the state without an ally. While we are glad about the result, we will term it as rehearsal before we can do a proper expansion in the state,” 

BJP is becoming a pan-India party, South included

For decades, BJP was termed as a party of the ‘Hindi Heartland’. But, since the Modi-Shah duo took over the helm of party affairs, it has expanded to the Eastern, Northeastern, and Southern parts of the country. 

It is imperative to note that BJP, for the first time, in the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly elections, 

ended a more than decade-long wait to have its leaders in the Assembly. It emerged as the third-largest party by winning four of the 20 seats it had contested. 

The highlight of the polls was the triumph of the saffron camp’s national women wing president Vanathi Srinivasan, who edged past Tamil star and Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) president Kamal Haasan. 

Karnataka, GHMC election and increase in vote share in Kerala

In Karnataka, it is a ruling party while in Telangana, the party’s performance was spectacular in last year’s Greater Hyderabad Municipal Elections (GHMC) as well as the 2019 general elections.

The party is all set to either bag the seat of power in the next assembly in Telangana or dislodge Congress as the primary opposition party. 

In the state of Kerala, although the party lost the one seat it had in the Kerala legislative assembly, its vote share increased by 0.77 points to reach 11.30 per cent. 

Read More: How BJP’s rising vote share in the southern states shows that it has become a pan-India force

Now it is the third-largest party in the state in terms of vote share and given the sad state of the Congress party, it would even dislodge them very soon to bag the position of the primary opposition party. 

In Puducherry, where BJP did not have a single elected MLA before the 2021 assembly election, it managed to bag six seats to be part of the ruling alliance with All Indian NR Congress (AINRC).

If these developments are closely monitored then one can infer with relative ease that BJP is making some solid moves in the Southern region of the country and if Amit Shah’s tactical acumen is anything to go by, the 2024 General elections could return bumper seats for the party. 

The Civic polls have indicated that DMK is not as invincible as it thinks itself off. And if the Stalin led party continues its anti-Hindu charade, the voters may teach the party a grand lesson in 2024.