South push: BJP renews Operation Coromandel to boost seat tally in 2024

More than a month after the electoral debacle in Karnataka, the BJP is taking steps to streamline its election strategy in four crucial southern states where it has little political presence. The project, referred to as ‘Operation Coromandel’, involves forming new alliances as well as bargaining for more seats with existing allies.

Taking the first step in this direction, BJP leaders are keen that in the seat sharing talks with alliance partner AIADMK, the party should get to contest at least nine Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu, and it would also like to contest the Puducherry seat. If the BJP is successful in convincing the AIADMK, this will be the highest number of Lok Sabha seats that the party will contest in the 2024 General Elections.

Also read: BJP seeks to rebuild NDA with eye on 2024 polls, Rajya Sabha numbers

“We are carrying out a month long expansion exercise, and we are going to visit all the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies,” a senior BJP leader from Tamil Nadu who is in the know of developments told The Federal. “BJP workers are also going to visit all the polling booths. We respect our alliance partners, and we want to contest elections together and win seats for the NDA. In his recent visit to Tamil Nadu, Home Minister Amit Shah has given us the target of winning more than 25 seats.”

During the 2019 General Elections, the AIADMK contested in 20 constituencies, while alliance partners PMK contested in seven, BJP in five, DMDK in four, and the Tamil Maanila Congress, Puthia Tamizagam, Puthia Needhi Katchi, and the NR Congress in one seat each.

It is not just Tamil Nadu that is witnessing political activity by the BJP. A similar expansion drive is underway in Telangana, which is scheduled to witness assembly elections in December this year. The BJP is keen on making inroads in the southern state. Senior leaders of the BJP believe that the idea behind starting an expansion drive in Telangana is to prepare the cadre for both the General Elections and the upcoming Assembly polls, which will prove to be a good strength for the BJP in the state.

The outreach programme in Telangana is being spearheaded by BJP president JP Nadda, who has already visited Kurnool and Hyderabad to launch door-to-door campaigns and also to meet some of the prominent citizens of Hyderabad to campaign for the party.

“Telangana is one state where the BJP is making efforts for expansion. During the 2019 elections, the BJP won four Lok Sabha seats out of the 17 seats, and we believe that with effort we can improve our position,” said a BJP leader from Telangana.

Revisiting ‘Operation Coromandel’

Realising that the Opposition was making plans to counter the BJP’s election machinery with the combined strength of several opposition parties in the 2024 general elections, the BJP is focusing its efforts in states where the party has little or negligible political force.

Among the states where the BJP is focusing are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. These states are crucial for the BJP because, together, they have 118 Lok Sabha seats, and in the 2019 polls, the BJP could only manage to win 12 seats from these five states.

Also read: Has Congress’s Karnataka win brought BRS, BJP together? KCR U-turn triggers buzz

“The first step to preparing for the 2024 General Elections is to acknowledge that there is room for improvement in these states. We know the BJP will have to work harder to improve its tally. During the 2019 polls, home minister Amit Shah had named these states as the Coromandel Project because most of the states are closer to the eastern coast of India,” the BJP leader from Telangana said.

Senior leaders of the BJP explained that the reason for targeting southern states was to ensure that if the BJP loses any seat in the northern part of the country because of a unified contest with the Opposition, the party will be able to maintain its national tally with the help of its performance in the southern states.

“The BJP is trying to expand in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. It is likely to form an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) because Chandrababu Naidu needs the support of a national party to counter the political influence of Jagan Mohan Reddy. In Tamil Nadu too, the BJP is looking to expand because the AIADMK is trying to regain its political hold in the state and needs the support of the former,” said Sandeep Shastri, political scientist and pro vice chancellor of the Jain University, Bengaluru.

Also read: Even in BJP strongholds across Karnataka, Hindutva falls flat as poll plank

New alliances

The coming together of opposition parties has also pushed the BJP to look for new alliance partners for the 2024 General Elections. The loss in Karnataka has also forced the BJP to regroup with members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), who had left the political grouping because of differences.

The first political group to return to the NDA is the TDP, under former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu. Even as the present chief minister, YSR Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP, has been more than helpful to BJP in Parliament, senior leaders of the party are keen to join hands with the TDP in the state. Andhra Pradesh is important for NDA because the state has 25 Lok Sabha seats and BJP has no seats in the state while TDP has just three.

Also read: Andhra: Is BJP dropping Jagan for Naidu? What Amit Shah’s tirade suggests

The project to expand the footprint of NDA is also being enforced in Karnataka where BJP is working on to reach an understanding with Janata Dal (Secular) led by former prime minister HD Deve Gowda. The massive victory of the Congress in Karnataka in the recent assembly elections has forced the BJP to rethink its strategy in the state.

The understanding being worked out between the BJP and JD(S) is also interesting because the former contested the 2019 General Elections alone and managed to win 25 out of the 28 seats. The surge for Congress in the state has forced the party leadership to join hands with the JD(S) to stop a repeat of the Assembly election results in the Lok Sabha polls.

Also read: JD(S) keeps both BJP, Opposition guessing ahead of 2024 polls

Shastri, however, says it is doubtful if the BJP will ever join hands with the JD(S) for the Lok Sabha polls considering that it won 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats on its own in 2019.

“I do not see a reason why the BJP will want to reach an alliance or understanding with the JD(S). BJP won 25 out of 28 seats on its own in Karnataka in the 2019 General Elections, any alliance will mean that both BJP and JD(S) will have to give away some of the seats that they contested in the previous general elections. I do not see a reason why the BJP will want to be part of such an alliance,” said Shastri.