The BJP is making its most audacious attempt to win more seats in the South with Prime Minister Narendra Modi extensively campaigning in the five Southern states. The primary focus has been Tamil Nadu which, the BJP feels, is a fertile ground for its politics in the future. The 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu will go to polls on Friday, in the first phase of polling.
In all, 102 seats spread over 21 states will go to polls on Friday, marking the beginning of the intensely fought polls. By the same evening, most of the parties will have a fair idea about which way the wind is blowing, allowing them to tweak their campaigns for the remaining six phases.
The contest is being framed as 'Modi ki Guarantee' versus promises made by the opposition, including the Congress, which has given its set of own guarantees. 'Modi ki Guarantee' seeks to scale up existing schemes, ensuring that they reach everyone. Other promises of the BJP include UCC and 'one nation, one election'. The Congress manifesto has 25 guarantees promising cash transfers, and increased wages.
The first phase will decide the future of some of the high-profile candidates, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Bhupendra Yadav, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K. Annamalai, Nakul Nath, former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Sarbananda Sonowal, Sanjeev Balyan, Jitin Prasada, and Gaurav Gogoi.
Three major players—the BJP, SP, and the BSP—are vying for dominance in the politically important Uttar Pradesh. The seats that will go to polls in the state are Saharanpur, Moradabad, Kairana, Rampur, Bijnor Muzaffarnagar, Pilibhit and Nagina. These seats are spread across nine districts in the state. The BJP's tie-up with Jayant Chaudhary-led RLP will be tested in the region which has a lot of farmers and Jat voters.
In the 2019 polls, the UPA had won more seats than the NDA from the 102 constituencies that will go to polls on Friday. Among these 102 seats are all the seats in Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep. As seven-phase polls are being held in UP, West Bengal and Bihar, some of the seats will go to poll in the first phase.
Ahead of the polls, Modi wrote a letter to BJP workers and candidates reminding them of the importance of the first phase of polls. In fact, in a personal letter to Annamalai, Modi lauded his work to build organisation in the state and the decision to leave his civil services job to join politics.
To bolster the saffron party’s chances in Tamil Nadu, the BJP think tank Public Policy Research Centre (PPRC) also came out with a report highlighting the issues in the state. The report reveals the reasons behind the growing discontent among workers and industries, leading to protests against the DMK government. “Poor policy making and a lack of political will have severely impacted the state's economic progress, which was once a symbol of national economic growth,” the report said.
In another report released for Kerala which goes to polls in the second phase, the PPRC accused the CPI (M) of fiscal mismanagement. “The financial woes of the state is the steady rise in public debt, soaring from Rs. 17,926.14 crore in 2016-17 to a staggering Rs. 35,988.28 crore by 2024-25. Notably, the outstanding debt has ballooned by 154.47 per cent from 2016-17 to 2024-25, painting a grim picture of Kerala's financial trajectory. The reductions in budget allocations for critical sectors like education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, and transportation pose significant threats to societal well-being and economic growth in Kerala," PPRC director Sumeet Bhasin said.
