Opinion Express View on Shobha Karandlaje’s anti- Tamil remarks: Labelling the people

In the run-up to elections, with the Model Code of Conduct in place, the Election Commission has done well to take note of BJP leader and Union Minister of State Shobha Karandlaje’s irresponsible and polarising statements about “people who come from Tamil Nadu” to “plant bombs here”. Karandlaje is the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from North Bengaluru. Her remarks, made to reporters on Tuesday, are also surely an embarrassment for her party, which has intensified its focus on the southern states — the push is led by the Prime Minister himself.

Karandlaje’s latest outburst — which also included sweeping statements that labelled “people of Delhi” and “people who come from Kerala” — has drawn strong condemnation from Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK government as well as the ruling LDF and opposition UDF in Kerala. She has stoked similar controversies earlier. In 2020, Kerala Police had filed a case against her for a social media post suggesting that Hindu families in Malappuram were denied water for supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Now, Karandlaje has apologised, but she may well have contributed to making the BJP’s challenge in the region — an uphill task — more difficult. For a party hoping for a third term at the Centre, making gains in the south may be crucial. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, out of 129 seats from the region, the BJP won 29 — of these, 25 were from Karnataka and four from Telangana. Of the five states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which send 20 and 39 MPs respectively, have been the toughest for the BJP to crack. It has never managed to get its candidates elected to the Lok Sabha from Kerala, while in Tamil Nadu, the party has only won from two constituencies — Coimbatore in 1998 and 1999 and Kanniyakumari in 2014. These are the odds that the BJP is trying to overcome as it makes an all-out effort to woo voters down South, with development projects worth thousands of crores, multiple rallies and roadshows addressed by the PM across the five states.

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Polarising remarks of the kind made by Karandlaje don’t just pose a hurdle to her own party’s ambitions, they also drag down the level of public discourse ahead of a crucial election. In the weeks to come, other attempts will be made to deepen divides and embitter the contest. Going ahead, the challenge will be to ensure that even as they plunge into the heat of battle, both parties and their candidates respect the inviolable rules of the game.