Road to 2024 | BJP’s plans for southern frontier: dial down on divisive image, focus on key seats | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
Its earlier South Mission a damp squib, BJP goes back to the drawing board
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Two years ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP, then under the leadership of Amit Shah, had prepared a South Mission blueprint to expand its base in southern India. The mission, which was to have ridden on the back of the RSS and the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was prepared keeping in view the strong network built by the Sangh in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.
Five years down that road, much of its plans — which included importing established leaders from other parties, introducing its own leaders from other states, inducting popular film stars and managing splits in the local parties — are still incomplete.
With some of its strategies not yielding the desired results and as the party now seeks to expand to the south and script new electoral successes in the 2024 elections, the BJP’s South Mission has undergone some significant changes.
The party leadership had earlier admitted that the south was a different playground and it would have to sand down its divisive political image and its Hindutva plank — strategies that worked well in the Hindi belt. Also, in order to broaden its appeal beyond its loyal, yet limited, support base, the party realises that it would have to breach the boundaries between its ideological position and welfare politics.
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