Politics in South India diverges from other regions, with a total of 130 Lok Sabha seats distributed among Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Puducherry. Tamil Nadu holds the highest with 39 seats, featuring some prominent regional parties such as DMK and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, JDS in Karnataka, YSR Congress and TDP in Andhra Pradesh, BRS and AIMIM in Telangana, KC(M) and IUML alongside smaller parties in Kerala. All India parties like BJP and Congress face challenges, with Congress occasionally making an impact in certain areas, while BJP lacks significant influence in South Indian states beyond Karnataka. The 2013 division of Andhra Pradesh weakened Congress's stronghold there. In Karnataka, parties like Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular) are on the decline. Tamil Nadu, after the loss of Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi, sees both Dravidian parties grappling with leadership vacuums.
Analysis of South Indian Politics in Loksabha Elections 2024 : In Tamil Nadu, 39 MPs are elected, marking AIADMK’s second Lok Sabha election post Jayalalitha’s demise, still grappling with a leadership vacuum. Conversely, DMK, led by MK Stalin since Karunanidhi’s passing, demonstrated strength in the 2021 assembly elections, seeking to replicate success in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The state’s political landscape has been dominated by the two major parties, DMK and AIADMK, since 1967, rendering Congress and BJP marginal. Congress relies on DMK, while BJP aligns with AIADMK to secure seats. With the current Stalin government, historical trends suggest a potential victory for DMK in the Lok Sabha elections.
The ruling party in Karnataka, Congress, led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, aims to replicate their assembly success in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Despite the BJP’s considerable efforts, it faced a decisive defeat in the assembly polls, with JDS in a worse condition. Post-assembly defeat, BJP and JDS formed an alliance for the Lok Sabha, yet recent surveys suggest BJP’s strength surpasses that of the assembly elections. Karnataka, often dubbed the Gujarat of South India, holds significant influence for BJP, evident in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections where BJP won 25 out of 28 seats, showcasing its strongest performance. In contrast, Congress secured 1 seat, JDS 1, and an independent candidate won 1.
Now let’s talk about Andhra Pradesh. At one time, it was the largest state in South India in terms of seats in the Lok Sabha, but after the separation of Telangana, now Andhra Pradesh has become third in terms of seats. Andhra Pradesh has a YSR Congress government headed by Jagan Reddy as the Chief Minister of the state. YSR Congress registered a landslide victory in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state in 2019 and strengthened its hold in the state. Caste dominance is very high in the state.
Khamma and Reddy take turns in holding power there. Therefore, will there be an upheaval in the elections this time or will Jagan change this tradition. YSR may not be in NDA, but from time to time in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, this party never disappointed the Modi government when needed. So much support to NDA and that too without being in NDA, the main reason behind this is Congress Party. His political enmity with Congress is well known.
By making the failures of YSR Congress an issue in Andhra Pradesh, TDP and its chief Chandra Babu Naidu are trying to find their lost ground. By the way, it is also being heard that keeping the Lok Sabha elections in mind, there is a race between both the parties to join the NDA. The state unit of Congress is engaged in reviving the party and for this they have played a masterstroke.
Late last year, the Congress party managed to bring Jagan Reddy’s sister Y S Sharmila into its fold. Now let’s see how much YS Sharmila sails for Congress.
Pinarayi Vijayan of CPI(M) is the Chief Minister of Kerala. In the 2021 assembly elections, P Vijayan broke a tradition that had been going on for decades. His party and other parties of the Left Front together formed the government for the second consecutive time, otherwise for decades in Kerala, sometimes the Congress Front government and sometimes the Left Front government was formed. BJP is making rapid inroads here due to other religious controversies like Sabarimala. It also creates an atmosphere but cannot do any wonders in elections.
The Congress, which largely depends on minority votes, is caught between Hindu votes, which are getting attracted towards the BJP. The BJP’s vote count had increased due to the rise of Hindutva sentiment and the state had received a total of 13 per cent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which was 2.67 per cent more than the 2014 elections.
Now if we talk about Congress, the last election was very encouraging for them. The state has a total of 20 Lok Sabha seats and in the last elections, due to Rahul Gandhi contesting from Wayanad, the Congress party front UDF had benefited a lot and managed to win a total of 15 seats. Now it has to be seen whether Chief Minister Vijayan will do any wonders in the Lok Sabha just as he broke the tradition in the Assembly or will Congress win again. In North India, BJP is going to the elections riding on the Ram wave. Will it benefit them in Kerala or will it be limited only to increase in the number of votes.
Telangana is the youngest state in the country. It has been only 10 years since its formation, Chandrashekhar Rao continued to agitate with his TRS for a long time to form this state and after the formation of the state, TRS and Chandrashekhar Rao took the maximum benefit. TRS dominated the 2013 and 2018 assembly elections and Chandrashekhar Rao felt that his government was not leaving Telangana so soon. In this connection, he thought why not take the party to the national level, for which he changed the name of his party from Telangana Rashtriya Samiti to Bharat Rashtriya Samiti. Now Rao went to the 2023 assembly elections with BRS but perhaps by the time 10 years had passed, he had lost his support base in the state.
Former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao lost the state assembly elections badly last month. For the first time after the formation of the state, the Congress party has formed the government in the assembly here. Newly elected Anumula Revanth Reddy of Congress is the first Congress Chief Minister of the state. Owaisi’s party AIMMS broke its alliance with BRS before the elections. Due to which Owaisi’s party did not suffer much loss but BJP definitely took advantage in the areas around Hyderabad. This time BJP got 8 seats, which is its highest till date.
Now if we talk about the 2019 Lok Sabha election results, there are a total of 17 seats in Telangana, out of which BRS won 9, BJP won 4, Congress won 3 seats and Owaisi’s party won only 1 seat. BJP seems a little more excited with its performance in the Assembly. At the same time, after forming the government for the first time in the assembly, Congress’s hopes are also sky high.
Puducherry is the smallest state of South India and is also a union territory. Here BJP has formed the government in alliance with its ally AINRC. N Rangaswami is a rebel leader of Congress, who formed his own party in 2011. In the 2021 assembly elections, Rangaswamy’s party had emerged as the largest party by winning 10 out of the total 33 seats in Puducherry. Then the government was formed here with the help of BJP’s 6 seats. DMK won 6 seats and Congress won 2 seats. There is only 1 Lok Sabha seat here and Congress had won it in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but as there is now a BJP government in the Assembly, the Lok Sabha can also be seen going to the BJP.
The politics of South India is completely different from that of North India. In South India, you will find different castes and many local dialects every two hundred and fifty kilometers, but the basic thing is that almost all the states are negative towards the central government.
The reasons for this are the dominance of regional leaders and the dominance of the federal system. Whether the next government at the Center is formed again by Narendra Modi or by INDIA alliance, it is certain that South Indian politicians will dominate. And we can also say this because if we look at the results of the 2019 elections, the condition of both the national parties was similar because out of the total 130 seats in South India, BJP got 29 seats while Congress got 28 seats. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP is contesting the elections on Ram wave by making Ram Mandir an issue and is expecting positive results for itself in South India, while on the other hand, Congress is in South India after Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Due to the changed environment, it has formed its strong government in two states Karnataka and Telangana, while INDIA is in alliance with the regional parties of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, due to which Congress has a lot of hopes this time in South India.
