Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Tamil Nadu on Tuesday—his sixth visit to the state since the beginning of 2024. Modi will hold a roadshow in the heart of Chennai—the busy Pondy Bazar and T Nagar region—covering South Chennai and Central Chennai constituencies. He will campaign for former Telangana and Puducherry governor Tamilisai Soundararajan in South Chennai and the party’s central Chennai candidate Vinod P. Selvam.
This is Modi’s second roadshow in Tamil Nadu since the Lok Sabha poll dates were announced. Modi went on a road show in Coimbatore, two weeks before and paid homage to the victims of the 1998 bomb blasts. The Coimbatore roadshow ended up as a mere show of strength.
After the roadshow, on Wednesday, Modi will address a public meeting in Vellore to support Pattali Makkal Kachi’s (PMK) Dharmapuri candidate Sowmiya Anbumani and the New Justice Party’s Vellore candidate A.C. Shanmugam who is contesting on the BJP symbol. Sowmiya and Shanmugam are considered to be the two star candidates of the NDA in Tamil Nadu. Later in the evening, Modi will reach Mettupalayam and campaign for L. Murugan, BJP’s candidate from Nilgiris and K. Annamalai, state unit president and Coimbatore candidate, and K. Vasantharajan from Pollachi.
Modi's frequent visit to the state is aimed at improving the party's vote share in Tamil Nadu from the existing 5.75 per cent to double digits. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP is witnessing a slow growth. “There is a good support among the people here. There is acceptance for the party and our prime minister. Modi will also visit Tirunelveli before April 19 and campaign for me in Ambasamudram,” Nainar Nagendran, BJP candidate from Tirunelveli, told The Week. Nagendran is also the legislative party leader of the BJP.
Apart from Modi’s roadshows, BJP’s top leaders like J.P. Nadda, Rajnath Singh, Anurag Singh Thakur, and Smriti Irani also campaigned for the NDA candidates in Tamil Nadu, in what appears to be a plan to prove that the state is not averse to Hindutva forces. The party has five MLAs which it won from being in the AIADMK alliance in 2021. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, even when it contested in alliance with the AIADMK, the BJP drew a flak. The last time it won was in 2014, when Pon Radhakrishnan won from Kanyakumari in a four-cornered contest.
