The BJP, which came a cropper in the just concluded Assembly elections, has managed to come third, edging out the DMDK-PWF, in as many as 30 constituencies, including in Chennai.
Besides, four of its candidates pushed the ruling AIADMK to the third position in four constituencies in Kanniyakumari district and ended as the runner-up.
Party leaders and sympathisers are seeing this as an indication of sections of urban voters favouring the BJP after the two Dravidian majors.
Voters like Jayashree Sridhar of Kodambakkam say they chose to vote for the BJP candidate because the Narendra Modi government at the Centre had proved it was a corruption-free one. “I thought I should give an opportunity to the BJP since the AIADMK and the DMK have alternatively been ruling the State. I think they will be a good alternative to these Dravidian majors,” she said.
Though traditionally Kanniyakumari and Coimbatore districts have been the BJP’s base, the party has been witnessing a small but noticeable growth in Chennai and other urban centres.
“These last few years, we worked well to increase our cadre base,” says a party leader.
In Chennai, the party State president Tamilisai Soundararajan stood third polling 19,167 votes and national secretary H. Raja secured 19,888 votes in T. Nagar. Candidates in Tambaram, Mylapore and Velachery got over 10,000 votes each.
Vote share
The BJP’s vote share of 2.8 per cent took it to the fifth slot in performance, even ahead of the DMDK, which had contested in the company of the Left parties, MDMK, VCK and TMC.
“One lesson that we have learnt this time is that though there is tremendous goodwill for Mr. Modi and the achievements of his government, the party lacks in having a proper organisational structure at the booth-level. Though I walked 330 km for 22 days in T. Nagar, a second round of campaigning in the ground-level could not be done,” said Mr. Raja.
Professor Ramu Manivannan of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Madras says that many voters who opted for the BJP had done so out of disillusionment over the two regional parties.
“They are tired of the two regional Dravidian parties and instead of voting for them, the urban voters chose to go with a national party and many don’t consider the Congress in their analysis. The urban voters are able to differentiate between regional and national parties, whereas that is not the case in rural Tamil Nadu,” he said.
