When asked about why South india will be BJP’s new frontier, jaishankar said there was a time when there were no bjp MPs in many states. So, the bjp was a “new frontier” in those states at some point. He also highlighted PM’s roadshows in coimbatore and palakkad (Kerala), and said he is confident about how “this will work out electorally”. He further said people nowadays are taking more interest foreign policy as they believe in the country more strongly, and South india “if not more” shares the same sentiment.

Moreover on allegations by regional parties that bjp is “anti-South India”, and is a “Hindi party”, jaishankar said the PM has already put that speculation to rest. The fact that he conducted the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam and Tamil-Saurashtra Sangamam is quite self-explanatory. PM Modi has taken “enormous pains to counter that propaganda that has vitiated our politics for very many years. And my sense is today you are getting that traction”, he pointed out. The bjp had gained only 25 lok sabha seats from karnataka and four from telangana out of the total 129 seats from five states of South india in 2019.