44-day, seven-stage election<\/a> on April 19, analysts say the success of Modi\u2019s calculations could hinge on one significant part of the country, which has so far remained largely impervious to the BJP\u2019s Hindu majoritarian charms: the country\u2019s south.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHome to about 20 percent of the nation\u2019s population, the five southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana, and the union territories of Puducherry and Lakshadweep, constitute India\u2019s most economically prosperous region. The south contributes more than 30 percent of the country\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But despite Modi\u2019s pitch that his government has helped boost the Indian economy, the BJP won just 30 of the 131 seats from the region \u2013 the vast majority of them from one state, Karnataka \u2013 in 2019. It drew a blank in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, and lost the constituencies of Puducherry and Lakshadweep. Some analysts believe a repeat is inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nationally, the BJP won 303 out of 543 seats, almost maxing out in most northern states \u2013 its traditional strongholds \u2013 and leaving the south as the territory it likely needs to gain in for the party to win a larger mandate than in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBJP is very unpopular in Andhra Pradesh and other southern states. In fact, anyone that allies with the BJP will do badly in these elections,\u201d said Mohan Guruswamy, a political analyst and the chairman of the Centre for Policy Analysis (CPA), a New Delhi-based think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parakala Prabhakar, an economist and the husband of India\u2019s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, said the coming election would reflect a \u201cnorth-south divide\u201d. Prabhakar has been a critic of the government his wife is a key member of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BJP\u2019s struggles in India\u2019s south are not new. With substantially better development indices, including on education and health, than the north, the region has been relatively immune to the religion-driven politics that have traditionally characterised the BJP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The southern state of Kerala, for instance, has an infant mortality rate of six deaths out of every 1,000 births\u2013 almost on par with the United States. The figure for the BJP-ruled state of Madhya Pradesh on the other hand stands at 48, a rate similar to that of war-torn Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Al Jazeera: New Delhi, India \u2013 In the early part of his campaign for India\u2019s upcoming 2024 election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a target for his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance that is ambitious even by the standards of his successful coalition. \u201cAbki baar 400 paar,\u201d Modi declared, claiming that the National Democratic Alliance, the ruling group of parties, would cross the 400-seat mark in a house of 543 parliamentary seats, with the BJP alone winning 370. Only once in India\u2019s 77 years as an independent nation has any party or alliance won more than 400 seats: the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38742,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38738\/revisions\/38742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}