Five years ago, during the 2019 general elections, the BJP failed to win even a single seat in three of the five southern states – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
Fast forward to today and the party has managed to win seats in all the southern states barring Tamil Nadu.
Even in Tamil Nadu, its total vote share saw an increase from 3.6% to 11.03%.
In Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram too, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the BJP candidate, posed a fierce challenge to three-time MP Shashi Tharoor of the Congress during the initial hours of counting.
Both Kerala and Tamil Nadu have so far been challenging electoral battlegrounds for the BJP.
The perception that the south of India was a bulwark against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s brand of Hindutva politics may have taken a beating on Tuesday, June 4, when the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were declared. Five years ago, during the 2019 general elections, the BJP failed to win even a single seat in three of the five southern states – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. Fast forward to today and the party has managed to win seats in all the southern states barring Tamil Nadu. Even in Tamil Nadu, its total vote share saw an increase from 3.6% to 11.03%.
Notable among the right-wing party’s victories was in Kerala’s Thrissur, where its star candidate, actor Suresh Gopi, won with a big margin. This is a major triumph for the party, which has been struggling to open an account in Kerala, with Suresh Gopi becoming its first candidate from the state to win in a general election.
In Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram too, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the BJP candidate, posed a fierce challenge to three-time MP Shashi Tharoor of the Congress during the initial hours of counting. At one point, Rajeev was leading with a margin of over 20,000 votes, leading many to think that the BJP would win two seats in Kerala, one more than the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), which managed to win only a single seat. But towards the end, when the votes in the coastal areas began to get counted, Tharoor cruised to win a fourth consecutive term as MP.
Both Kerala and Tamil Nadu have so far been challenging electoral battlegrounds for the BJP.
In Kerala, although the BJP had, in 2014, managed to increase its vote share from 5% to 13% and the NDA’s share went up from 10% to 15.64%, it had failed to send even a single member to the parliament. But this did not demotivate their leadership, including PM Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who repeatedly voiced their ambition to gain a foothold in the state. Suresh Gopi’s victory can be seen as a result of the efforts put in by BJP’s top leaders, who campaigned intensively in Thrissur.
