Chennai, May 20: The Bharatiya Janata Party is confident of expanding its footprint in Southern India this time. The key southern states including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Karnataka have already voted in the first four phases of the Lok Sabha polls. These states have 130 seats and the saffron party under the leadership of Narendra Modi has worked hard to make inroads into these states. While Prime Minister Modi toured the southern states ahead of the Ram Temple’s inauguration, the BJP leader is confident of a saffron surge in the Southern States.
Talking to PTI, PM Modi claimed that the BJP will emerge as the single largest party in the south. He also said that the NDA will cross 400 seats tally on June 4. Modi said his opponents have created a myth that the BJP has no strength or presence in the southern states.
“Look at the 2019 elections. The largest party even then in the south was the BJP. Again, I say this: the largest party in the south this time will be the BJP, and its allies will add more (seats) to it…We will be the single largest party in Southern India and by an even bigger margin than the last time,” claimed Modi.
At present, the BJP has 29 MPs of these 130, the majority of these from Karnataka. “The blessings of the people will take us to a record-breaking mandate. We will see more seats from all parts of the country, particularly from the south and the east,” he said.
Modi said the narrative about BJP’s weakness in the south is part of a campaign that has painted the party variously as urban-centric, male-centric, north-centric and a ‘Baniya-Brahmin’ party. The Prime Minister indicated that the BJP would defy these myths this time.
