BJP's Big Push In East, South

An expansionist BJP looks south and east ahead of Lok Sabha 2019

- Uday Mahurkar

As he sits sipping morning tea at his 11, Akbar Road residence in Delhi, the first thing BJP chief Amit Shah does is scan the papers for news of the party from the eastern and the southern states. He even has an aide specifically tasked with the job of gleaning news of the success of BJP programmes, or rifts in non-NDA parties and public agitations against the ruling dispensations. All these are flagged for discussions with the party’s point men in the south and east—Kailash Vijayvargiya, Ram Madhav and P. Muralidhar Rao, in charge of Bengal, the Northeast and Tamil Nadu-Telangana, respectively.

The focus of the new Chanakya of Indian politics is quite understandable. If the BJP has to come to power again at the Centre in 2019, it must extend its footprint substantially in these two regions. In 2014, except for Assam, Odisha and Karnataka, the Modi magic didn’t have much impact. Of the total 160-odd MPs that come from these states, the party won three seats in Andhra Pradesh, two in Bengal, one in Tamil Nadu and Telangana and had nothing to show in Kerala, The BJP did win seven seats in Assam and Odisha and six in Karnataka, which was a beginning. Since then, the party won the Assam assembly polls with the help of a skillfully crafted coalition and also increased its vote share in Bengal and Kerala, but it’s still way behind on its Mission 2019 targets. After the landslide win in Uttar Pradesh, there’s a new spring in Amit Shah’s stride as he travels across the country, visiting state after state as part of his 95-day plan to galvanise the BJP organisation for 2019—and the state assembly elections en route. Indeed, some of the assembly polls will be like previous battle rounds before the epic contest for the Lok Sabha.

SOUTHERN SURGE, EASTERN PROMISES

Party president Amit Shah has identified growth areas in states where the BJP has never had a presence