Eyeing 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP heading down South with expansion plan

NEW DELHI: The BJP’s efforts to expand its footprints in the South beyond Karnataka have not yielded the desired results in the past, but the party is in no mood to give up.

Having ‘conquered’ the Northeast earlier, it’s raring to go for the South again and is channelising all its efforts to consolidate its position in southern states like Kerala, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh ahead of the next parliamentary elections in 2024.

A BJP source who is on the team for the ‘Mission South’, said the central leadership sees it as a ‘collective challenge’ to strengthen the party’s foothold in Kerala, Telangana and Andhra, with everyone from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda and general secretary (organisation) BL Santosh, along with other prominent central and local leaders, contributing in the efforts.

As part of a meticulously planned strategy, the BJP has decided to hold the meeting of its two-day national executive committee on July 2-3 in Hyderabad. “After Karnataka, poll-bound Telangana is the biggest concern for the saffron party.

The BJP is holding its national executive meeting in Hyderabad as part of its plan to go all-out in an attempt to emerge as a strong, viable alternative to the TRS,” a senior party leader said. 

The PM will attend the party’s national executive on the first day. During his recent visit to Telangana, Modi had accused the TRS government of surviving through dynastic politics.

The BJP is learnt to have prepared an issue-oriented strategy for making inroads in the Left-ruled Kerala where its efforts to make an impact in the Assembly polls had come cropper despite fielding ‘Metro Man’ E Sreedharan. 

“Since these states of South India have never been familiar with the ideologies of the saffron party, the plan is to make a deep issue-oriented outreach programme,” said a BJP leader.

“Though the next assembly elections in Kerala and Tamil Nadu are scheduled in 2026, the party has begun working in advance to chalk out an electoral strategy tailor-made for these two states,” a highly-placed source said.

All top BJP leaders have been rushing to the southern states in recent months in a bid to send out a signal to the electorate there. After Modi’s visit to Telangana, Amit Shah had addressed a public meeting in the state on May 14 and visited Kerala on May 15.

Nadda had also recently gone on a two-day visit to Telangana and Kerala on May 5-6. 

Telangana is the main focus of the saffron camp

BJP has only three MLAs and four MPs in Telangana. Its prime concern now is to dislodge TRS in the upcoming Assembly election. The BJP has included the farmers’ issues in its strategy against the TRS.

In Kerala, the BJP is learnt to have decided to take on the Left government on the issue of “appeasement-politics”.