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Focus on 5 Lok Sabha seats as BJP looks to gain ground in TN
The BJP in alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had drawn a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections
Chennai
Five years after it failed to make any mark in the state during the Lok Sabha polls, despite sweeping the Hindi heartland, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is again trying to gain foothold in Tamil Nadu in upcoming general elections.
The BJP in alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) had drawn a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
In September 2023, the two parted ways, leaving the BJP to contest with smaller parties such as Maanila Congress.
According to the political experts, the BJP’s “gamble of going alone with smaller parties in Tamil Nadu can help the national party to gain in at least five parliamentary seats, if not more, in a three-cornered contest against the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and opposition AIADMK.”
A BJP leader familiar with the development said that the party were banking on Kanyakumari, Coimbatore, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi and Sivaganga seats, apart from hoping of decent performance in Tirunelveli, Tirupur, Tenkasi and south Chennai constituencies.
The party’s vote share in previous polls also substantiates this. In the 2019 Lok Sabh elections, the BJP contested in five seats — Kanyakumari, Coimbatore, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi and Sivaganga — where the party received some backing.
Kanyakumari has recorded BJP’s best performance so far in Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu. The party has maintained a steady vote share there irrespective of whether it was or wasn’t in an alliance with AIADMK or other allies. BJP won the seat in 2014, when AIADMK was contesting all the seats on its own and made the contest three-cornered. In a bipolar contest in 2019, it was far behind the winner (Congress which was part of the DMK-led alliance in the state).
The BJP has also polled around one-third of the votes in Coimbatore in previous two Lok Sabha elections but came relatively close to the winner (AIADMK) only in 2014, again when the contest was triangular, one between AIADMK, BJP, and DMK. The western region of Tamil Nadu, which includes Coimbatore district, is a strong hold of the ruling AIADMK, where the DMK directly fielded its candidate last in 1996 Lok Sabha elections.
Here, industrialists and the community of Telugu-speaking Naidus and Gounders support the BJP.
In 2019, a sizeable Muslim population of the area protested against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) along with the Anglo-Indians and various Christian groups that support the DMK-Congress combine.
Coimbatore had witnessed widespread violence in 2016 after several mosques and churches were pelted with stones following the murder of a Hindu Munnani spokesperson C Sasikumar. In its charge sheet, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had named members of the now-banned extremist outfit People Front of India (PFI) as accused. In 1998, multiple bomb blasts during BJP leader LK Advani’s visit to Coimbatore claimed at least 58 lives. Following this, local party veteran CP Radhakrishnan (current Jharkhand governor) was elected twice as the MP but failed to retain seat in the 2019 Parliamentary polls.
A three-cornered contest also helped the BJP get relatively close to the winner in Vellore in 2014. In 2014, B Senguttuvan of the AIADMK won with 383,719 votes and a 6% margin against A C Shanmugam who belongs to the New Justice Party and contested under the BJP symbol to receive 324,326.
In 2019, Shanmugam was the runner up, this time contesting under the AIADMK symbol, after BJP joined them, with 477,199 votes losing by a thin margin of 0.79% to DMK’s Kathir Anand who received 485,349 votes.
Ramanathapuram is the only other Lok Sabha seat where the BJP has polled 30% votes in past three LS elections. In 2009 and 2014, BJP came in third while the DMK and AIADMK won the seats respectively.
The difference in votes between the winner and the BJP in these two elections was — 166,623 and 234,863 respectively and the margin was 9% and 12% respectively. In 2019, DMK’s ally IUML won with 469,943 votes (44.29%) while BJP’s candidate former AIADMK heavyweight Nainar Nagendran was the runner up with 342,821 votes (32.31%) and the margin of victory was close to 12%.
In 2014 in Tirunelveli, AIADMK won 41.9% votes while the Desiya Murpoku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) which was part of the BJP alliance came in third with 13.4% and in 2019, AIADMK fielded its candidate who was the runner up. In Tirupur, DMDK was the runner up with 25.42% votes, far behind the winner AIADMK 42.73%. In 2019, DMK’s ally CPI polled more with 45.6% beating AIADMK at 37%. In 2014, in Tenkasi (SC reserved constituency) the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) part of the BJP alliance polled third with 18.9% where AIADMK (42%) was the winner. In 2019, Puthiya Tamilagam party founder K Krishnaswamy, part of the NDA, contested under the AIADMK symbol and was the runner up polling 33.6% losing to DMK which polled 45%.
In south Chennai, AIADMK’s first time candidate D Jayavardhan polled 41% beating senior leaders of the DMK and BJP— TKS Elangovan 28% and L Ganesan 24.5% respectively. However, in 2019, Jayavardhan contesting under NDA lost to DMK’s Tamizhachi Thangapadian with over 23% margin.
The BJP plans of bagging Lok Sabha seats with a lower vote share through a three-corned contest, said people familiar with the matter. The minimum vote share of a winning MP in the past three Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu was 35.6% in 2009, 36.7% in 2014, and 43% in 2019, when it was a direct fight between DMK-led alliance and AIADMK-led alliance. The BJP leaders said in the triangular contest, the winning vote percentage could be 35% to 37%.
Tamil Nadu has been among the top priority state for the BJP with Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the state four times since January. On February 25, Modi launched his campaign from Palladam in Tirupur district which is one of the assembly segments in the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency. Modi also spoke of the legacy of AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran and his successor J Jayalalithaa which political analysts said was to appeal to the AIADMK voter base.
The event also marked the culmination of Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai’s six month padyatra en mann en makkal (my soil, my people) passing through all the 234 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK had left the BJP alliance last September blaming Annamalai for his comments against their late leader J Jayalalithaa of being corrupt. Due to the breaking of the alliance, the DMK will get the benefit of having the anti-DMK votes split three ways between the AIADMK, the BJP and other parties such as S Seeman’s Naam Tamizhar Katchi.
Political analyst Maalan Narayanan said: “When the BJP’s primary poll plank in Tamil Nadu is corruption, they cannot continue being with the AIADMK and speak against it.”
“This split and if Annamalai’s yatra has gained ground... both can definitely give an edge to the BJP in at least five seats,” he said, naming Tirupur, Coimbatore Virudhunagar, south Chennai and Kanyakumari.
According to the BJP’s own internal assembly, they hope to garner a minimum vote share of 12.5%. “With PM’s campaigns, we think it will go up to 18%,” a senior BJP leader said. In 2014 LS polls, BJP polled 5.5% votes (without AIADMK and in alliance with Pattali Makkal Katchi) which Jayalalithaa swept winning 37 out of 39 seats. BJP’s vote share further dropped in 2019 LS polls to 3.6% in alliance with the AIADMK and PMK where the DMK won 38 out of the 39 seats.
“Yes, our plan was to be with the AIADMK until 2026 and then face the elections alone. But, the change may work out in our favour. The pattern to vote only for either the DMK or AIADMK may change now because we are offering an alternative,” said another senior BJP functionary.
Since AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016, the BJP has tried to make inroads into Tamil Nadu through a weakened AIADMK. Even when they were in alliance, the AIADMK was worried that BJP was taking up more space as an opposition party and the plan is to completely relegate the EPS-led party to position itself as the main rival of the DMK. The BJP’s narrative here is that the DMK-Congress combine has been practising dynastic politics and Dravidian parties are entrenched in corruption which they hope to break with a promise of development and double engine growth being in the Centre, said the party insiders.
Both the AIADMK and BJP have been wooing the remaining NDA allies such as the PMK and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam. So far, only the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) led by former Union minister under the UPA regime G K Vaasan has announced that he will continue to stick with the BJP. Leaders expelled from the AIADMK- O Panneerselvam and TTV Dinakaran (who founded a breakaway faction Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam) are hoping for a resurrection by joining forces with the BJP. Both leaders belong to the Thevar community which is dominant in the southern districts which BJP is trying to cash in.“When the AIADMK and BJP were together itself they lost to us and now their split will give us more advantage,” said DMK MP TKS Elangovan.
“It’s the AIADMK’s votes that transferred to the BJP,” a senior party leader said not wishing to be named. “They needed us more than we needed them. The battle is only between us and the DMK. And now that we are out of the alliance, we are once again receiving the support of minorities,” said the leader.
