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Reflecting the BJP’s push to make inroads into the south, the number of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trips to the five southern states saw a steady rise in the last two years of his second term leading up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which started on April 19.
Records available on the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) website show that Modi made 146 trips to the five southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu between May 26, 2014, and April 17, 2024. He made 73 visits each to these states in his first and second terms. More than one-third of these trips came in the last three years — 2022 (13), 2023 (23) and 2024 (23 till April 17). Overall, the share of southern states in domestic trips undertaken by Modi during this period rose from 14% in his first term to 18% in the second.
In the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Tamil Nadu voted in the first phase on April 19. Kerala voted in the second phase on April 26 while Telangana and Andhra will vote in the fourth phase on May 13. Karnataka voted on April 26 and will complete polling on May 7.
The records show that Modi undertook 928 domestic visits, including 520 in his first term (2014-19) and 408 in the second (after May 2019). Of these, the Prime Minister visited UP the most (153) followed by Gujarat (87), Maharashtra (61), MP (54), Rajasthan (49) and Karnataka (45). These six states accounted for almost half of his domestic trips while UP and Gujarat alone accounted for a little over a quarter of them.
The Prime Minister toured Karnataka the most among southern states in the last 10 years, followed by Tamil Nadu (39), Kerala (25), Telangana (22) and Andhra (15). With the five states accounting for 129 of 543 seats in Lok Sabha, the BJP has been making an effort to make inroads in the region although the party’s efforts have not yielded much electoral dividend so far except in Karnataka.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha, BJP did not win a single seat in Andhra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and the party’s vote share in these three states was 0.97 per cent, 12 per cent and 3.6 per cent, respectively. It won 25 seats with a vote share of 51 per cent in Karnataka, and four seats with a vote share of 19.65 per cent in Telangana.
The records also show that Modi’s 146 visits to the southern states included 64 official and 56 non-official trips (elections rallies and party functions). In all, the Prime Minister attended 356 events during his 146 visits to southern states, of which a maximum 144 were non-official like public meetings, while 83 were development related like inauguration and foundation laying of projects.
A year-wise analysis of these domestic visits shows that the Prime Minister made the maximum number of trips (185) during 2019, when the previous general elections were held. Out of 185 visits in 2019, Modi made 100 trips (all non-official except three) between the announcement of Lok Sabha polls on March 10, 2019, and the counting of votes on May 23, 2019.
In the wake of Covid, the number of domestic trips dropped to 23 during 2020, the lowest in a calendar year since May 2014. Thereafter, it rose gradually to 61 in 2021, 98 in 2022, and 108 in 2023, the second highest in the last nine years. In 2024, the Prime Minister undertook 82 domestic visits till April 17.
In all, out of the Prime Minister’s 928 domestic visits, 460 were official, 382 non-official and 86 official/non-official. These trips came over 696 days, as he travelled to more than one state in a single day on several occasions.
