Artificial Intelligence to project push to multiple visits: PM Modi, BJP spare little in South drive

On Monday, he slammed the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) at a public meeting at Jagtial in Telangana before proceeding to Shivamogga in Karnataka. He ended the day with a roadshow at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, where he paid homage to the victims of 1998 blasts.

Last week, the PM addressed an NDA rally at Palnadu in Andhra Pradesh and public meetings in  Telangana’s Nagarkurnool, Kerala’s Pathanamthitta, and Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari.

Here are highlights from Palakkad. Kerala’s youth is tired of UDF and LDF. Both have no vision to develop the state. Their interests are only corruption and vote bank politics. It is only BJP which can improve people’s lives. pic.twitter.com/Poq0COI48D

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 19, 2024

The BJP, which is not seen as a formidable force in the South barring Karnataka, had won 29 out of the 129 seats in the five states in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It had won 25 seats out of 28 in Karnataka, four of 17 in Telangana, failing to open its account in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which sends 20 and 39 MPs to the Lok Sabha respectively.

Senior BJP leader and Kerala in-charge Prakash Javadekar has exuded confidence about the party’s prospects this time, saying the BJP will emerge as the single largest party in South India. “(Congress president) Kharge said South India is BJP-mukt. I can say with certainty that after the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP will be the single largest party in the South while the NDA will get the maximum number of seats,” he said.

PM Narendra Modi with Union MoS L Murugan (left) and BJP state chief K Annamalai in Tamil Nadu’s Salem on Tuesday. (PTI)

Meanwhile, aiming to breach the language barrier, the BJP has been using technology like machine learning to translate the PM’s speeches into different southern languages, including the local one.

The enthusiasm in Palakkad is indicative of the strong support for NDA in Kerala. Here are some glimpses from the roadshow. pic.twitter.com/qbvSDVkrZK

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 19, 2024

Before the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) kicked in on March 16, Modi had not only launched several projects in these states but also virtually launched projects in the southern states during his visits to other parts of India.

For instance, Modi virtually flagged off four new Vande Bharat trains for the South – Secunderabad-Visakhapatnam, Mysuru-Chennai, Puri-Visakhapatnam and Kalaburgi-Bengaluru – while launching development projects in Ahmedabad on March 12.

Similarly, he launched highway projects worth around Rs 6,000 crore in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka during an event in Gurugram on March 11, where inaugurated the Haryana section of the Dwarka Expressway.

Thank you Coimbatore. I will always cherish the affection I’ve received here.

On the way to Palakkad to take part in a roadshow after which will go to Salem for a rally. pic.twitter.com/fk5IRdfzsc

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 19, 2024

From Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, Modi virtually laid the foundation stones for airport terminals of Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh), Hubballi and Belagavi (Karnataka) while he dedicated a host of temple and tourist development projects in the southern states during his Viksit Bharat programme in Srinagar.

The PM had also been on a “gifting spree” for the South in February. He inaugurated and dedicated to the nation a slew of projects in the five states including educational institutions, rail projects, highway projects, pipelines, etc.

The Modi government had on February 9 also announced the Bharat Ratna for renowned agricultural scientist late M S Swaminathanm, a native of Tamil Nadu.