Lok Sabha Election: What is powering BJP's South India juggernaut? A look at four states
BJP.
The BJP's southern push is part of its larger plan to emerge as a pan-India party. But there are short-term considerations too. The party's target of winning 370 seats when it has maxed out in its traditional stronghold states can be realised only by winning more seats in the South. Additionally, it is expecting strong resistance from opposition parties in Maharashtra and Bihar and also its South Indian bastion of Karnataka, where its NDA coalition won 26 out of 28 seats in 2019 polls. Its new chief ministers in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are untested which could be a vulnerability.
For these reasons, the BJP has crafted a major campaign for South India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has visited South India nearly two dozen times in the past few months. Modi on Tuesday wrapped up his whirlwind tour of South India by holding a roadshow in Kerala and a public rally in Tamil Nadu
Over the last six days, Modi visited all of south, held roadshows, made an aggressive bid for his party, and took on the rivals with full gusto, especially the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, and the BRS in Telangana that was in power for 10 years. In Andhra Pradesh, he shared the stage with former CM Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan, the two BJP allies in the state which will have simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
For the first time, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have emerged as priority states for the BJP since it is in these states where BJP sees the biggest scope to add more seats, besides just a
