In south India, BJP wins the battle but loses the war

Like last time, the BJP has won 29 seats in the region but the Congress has done better by winning 40 constituencies.

Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, south India, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Lok Sabha Election Results 2024, Lok Sabha Elections 2024, Indian express news, current affairs

TDP supporters celebrate the party's lead in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls and Lok Sabha polls, in Hyderabad, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (PTI Photo)

The BJP on Tuesday made substantial gains in some states in the south but lost its 2019 record of being the single-largest party overall across the five states. Back then, 25 of its seats five years ago came from Karnataka and four in Karnataka, two more than the Congress’s tally of 27. This time too the BJP won 29 seats, but the Congress has done better by winning 40 constituencies in the south. So where did the BJP gain and where did it lose?

Andhra Pradesh

In 2019, the BJP’s vote share in Andhra Pradesh was 0.96 per cent. The party was almost wiped out after Telugu Desam Party (TDP), its longtime ally from 1999, joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) right before the elections. The party’s performance was also affected by the rise of YSR Congress Party, which had won 22 of the 25 seats in the state.
However, in 2024, the party formed an alliance with TDP and Telugu actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party. The alliance reaped dividends, with BJP winning three of the six seats it contested in with a vote share of 13.07 per cent.
This was consistent with its past record of vote shares — in 1999 in undivided Andhra Pradesh, the BJP had a vote share of 9.90 per cent. Its vote share was 8.41 per cent in 2004, 3.75 per cent in 2009 and 7.18 per cent in 2014.

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Telangana

The BJP had made substantial gains in Telangana — a state which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 — in the last two elections. The year Telangana was formed, the BJP won a single seat in the state and had a vote share of 10.37 per cent. In 2019, it tripled its fortunes winning four seats, with a vote share of 19.45 per cent.

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In 2024, it continued the juggernaut winning eight of the 17 parliament seats in the state. The party’s vote share also increased to 35.06 per cent. Meanwhile, the Congress was in a neck and neck fight with the BJP, winning eight seats on its own and a vote share of 40.11 per cent.
What really helped the BJP in Telangana was the decimation of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), a regional party which branched out in 2022 to become a national party. The BRS’s vote share had dropped from 41.29 per cent to 16.89 per cent, thereby feeding the BJP and the Congress.

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Kerala

BJP stood to gain in Kerala where it opened its Lok Sabha account winning one seat – Thrissur, where actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi won. The last time it made a similar impactful opening in Kerala was in 2016, when the party’s senior leader O Rajagopal won Nemam Assembly constituency.

Apart from bagging a seat, the party has also grown with its vote share increasing consistently over the past two decades. In 1999, the party’s vote share in the state was 6.56 per cent. In 2004, it increased to 10.38 per cent. In the 2009, 2014 and 2019 elections, the BJP’s seat share was 6.31 per cent, 10.33 per cent and 12.93 per cent respectively. In 2024, the BJP’s vote share in Kerala stood at 16.67 per cent.

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Karnataka

The BJP suffered major losses in Karnataka where it had won 25 seats in 2019. In the state, the party was cut short to 17 seats and its vote share reduced from 51.38 per cent to 46.05 per cent.
Here the Congress gained majorly, winning nine seats. The Congress had earlier won the Assembly elections in the state in 2023.

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The Karnataka debacle is dear for the BJP because the state has been its bastion in the past. As early as 1999, the state had given BJP a vote share of 27.19 per cent. Over the next few elections, the BJP’s vote share increased manifold with the party getting a 34.77 per cent vote share in 2004, 41.63 per cent in 2009 and 43.01 per cent in 2014.

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Tamil Nadu

While exit polls predicted that Tamil Nadu could give the BJP two to three seats, the party failed to make a mark in the state as it did not win any. However, its vote share increased from 3.66 per cent in 2019 to 10.72 per cent in 2024. This vote share is higher than what the party had managed to get in 1999, when it won four seats in an alliance with the DMK. The Dravidian party is one of the BJP’s most vocal critics and political rivals.

In short, the BJP made inroads in the south, but failed to make the impact it was expecting to create. While campaigning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed that his party will emerge the single largest party in the south — a statement which was repeated by Home Minister Amit Shah.