The BJP in Tamil Nadu is a raging startup — but is there a product-market fit?
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
What BJP may want is a boost in Tamil Nadu, like the one it got in West Bengal in 2019 when it got 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats, surprising everyone. As of now, it looks like the BJP is eyeing the votes that go to AIADMK. Even if it gets all the votes that went to its former allies in 2019, it won’t move the needle for the NDA alliance in Lok Sabha in 2024.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent spate of rallies in Tamil Nadu is an attempt to woo the voters in a state that has never elected a leader from the party to the Parliament, except once.
What the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may want is a boost in Tamil Nadu, like the one it got in West Bengal in 2019 when it got 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats, surprising everyone. Can the 39-year-old firebrand K Annamalai, state president for BJP, deliver a surprise this time?
Will BJP’s offering have the necessary traction the party wants in the biggest economy (gross state domestic product of over ₹28 lakh crore) in South India?
Or, as an investor would ask a startup founder: is there a product-market fit? The term describes to what extent a product satisfies an existing, unmet demand in a market.
BJP’s top offerings: Hindutva and Nationalism
Even after 50 years, the atheist Dravidian parties in power have not been able to convince the Tamil society to forsake religion, but neither has the Hindutva wave engulfed the political space in the state like it has in many other parts of the country.
BJP’s brand of nationalism doesn’t echo as intensely in Tamil ears as it does in, say, Uttar Pradesh. At least, it hasn’t so far.
The Pulwama terror attack, and the Indian Army’s response, is believed to have swung a lot of votes in BJP’s favour in the rest of the country. But in Tamil Nadu, it could not give the party any significant traction in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
So, is any ideological persuasion futile in a state where the voter is known to look for tangible offerings, whether it’s television sets and laptops, cycles and scooters, free electricity and good roads, or just the good old cash in hand?
People do vote differently in national elections but the voters of Tamil Nadu, for decades, have not gone beyond local parties.
What’s the product/service that BJP is offering aside from Hindutva and nationalism?
While many political observers — both in favour of and against BJP — see the party as an alternative to the nearly six-decades-old ‘Dravidian model’, which Chief Minister MK Stalin of the rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam described as “ellarukkum ellam” (everything, for everyone).
It may sound like an echo of “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (with everyone’s support, for everyone’s development), which has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s go-to slogan in recent years. The two parties may argue that the messages have subtle differences, which may be lost on the untrained ear.
Further, is Modi really offering an alternative to all Dravidian parties? On February 28, he praised former Chief Ministers of the state, the late MG Ramachandran (popularly known as MGR) and the late J Jayalalithaa, for the way they governed the state.
Both leaders belonged to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which would place itself as a descendent of the Dravidian ideology.
Target audience: So, is the BJP gunning only for those who vote for AIADMK?
The AIADMK had a nearly 19% vote share in the 2019 elections. Five years since, it’s a much weaker party and BJP would like to corner a bulk of the votes.
Modi’s generous praise for MGR and Jayalalithaa can be seen as a recruitment call for the cadre, aside from a pitch to the voters. That’s a bigger setback for its former ally but not for DMK, which is part of the rival coalition at the national level.
Are there any other votes that BJP could eat into?
The two parties, DMK and AIADMK — both have been BJP allies in the recent past — have alternated to power in Tamil Nadu for nearly six decades. It’s inevitable that some people are tired of staring at the pendulum.
The space between the DMK and AIADMK is what many like the actor Rajinikant have noticed and aspired for, the late Vijaykanth captured some of it but couldn’t retain his hold for long, and smaller parties like the Naam Tamilar Katchi, led by director-turned-politician Seeman, have got a part of it, which they are holding on to right now.
How many such people are there?
In the 2021 state assembly election, parties other than DMK and AIADMK (and their respective friends) bagged nearly one in every four votes. This number could grow as anti-incumbency is natural.
Seeman’s party, believed to have a very sticky following among certain sections of the youth, got its biggest vote share at 6.6%.
Similarly, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) led by Anbumani Ramadoss has a steady following in certain districts and has maintained a 4-5% vote share in the last two assembly elections. The PMK fought the 2019 election in alliance with the AIADMK and the BJP.
Riding on Modi’s charm, the BJP could chip away into these votes but it is important to remember that in 2019, none of the parties, except AIADMK, could win a single seat.
The DMK-led alliance bagged all seats except for the one that AIADMK’s P Ravindhranath, the son of former chief minister O Panneerselvam, won in Theni.
Essentially, there’s a demand for an alternative but none of the options have attained critical mass so far.
More importantly, both AIADMK and PMK were allies of the BJP in 2019. So, even if all the votes that these parties had in 2019 get transferred to the BJP, it would not move the needle for significantly for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha.
What it can do is make the BJP a serious contender in the state.
Local leadership is crucial to tweak the product to fit the market
In West Bengal in 2019, the relentless rabble rouser Dilip Ghosh led the campaign for BJP before being pushed into oblivion. In 2024, Annamalai has a different style, and arguably more substance than Ghosh, but he has been just as relentless as Ghosh.
Annamalai could’ve soaked in the success of his ‘Yen mann, yen makkal’ (my soil, my people) yatra — he covered every assembly constituency in the state — which was inaugurated by Home Minister Amit Shah and wound up by Modi (with a pat on the back).
But the former cop-turned-politician was ready with a fresh salvo within 48 hours. His latest video alleging the proliferation of illegal drugs in the state — a claim backed by none other than Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu — is the latest example of how the BJP leader has set narratives that forced the ruling DMK government on the defensive, time and again.
The party’s leadership has backed Annamalai’s energy even when it cost it its alliance with the AIADMK.
BJP in Tamil Nadu is a lot like a young startup backed by the might of venture capital, and fronted by a passionate founder who is willing to do whatever it takes to grow the number of subscribers/users/customers.
Some experts rank him among the next crop of national leaders for the BJP alongside Himata Biswa Sarma in Assam, and, maybe a notch below, Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister).
The 2024 Lok Sabha election is as much a test for Annamalai as it is for the late Canadian communication specialist Marshall Mcluhan who famously said, “the medium is the message”.
In the absence of a serious difference between the offerings of BJP and DMK, the effectiveness of Annamalai as the medium could be tested.
If the electorate is clear about the goods and not about who delivers it, as the people of Tamil Nadu have been over the years, Annamalai and the BJP have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The focus is not the
However, Modi has extended more than a hand towards Tamil Nadu and is hoping that the people reciprocate.
Correction: An earlier version of the story wrongly said that there had never been a BJP Lok Sabha member from Tamil Nadu. Pon Radhakrishnan was elected to the Parliament from the Kanyakumari constituency in 2014. He lost in 2019.
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