South-south divide: LS elections in southern India, which has 131 seats, will be a challenge even for INDIA bloc

As the INDIA bloc begins its Delhi meeting, it may be hoping to bet big on 131 Lok Sabha seats in five southern states and two UTs. But even here, contests will be keen, and equations tricky. In Kerala for instance, while it hammers out LS strategy with CPM in Delhi, Congress-led state opposition UDF has accused governing party CPM-led LDF of graft. The animosity between workers of the two alliances is only growing. Then there’s outlier state Andhra, the only one where neither governing party YSRCP nor opposition TDP are at present with NDA, but for both of whom Congress has been archrival. Andhra’s probe agency jailing ex-CM Chandrababu Naidu shows CM Jagan Reddy’s nervousness.

Naidu’s TDP won 3 LS seats in 2019, but had a credible 40% vote share, compared to YSRCP’s 50%, which won 22 of the state’s 25 LS seats. Much is at stake for Reddy since Andhra’s assembly election is held simultaneously with the LS polls.

In Telangana too, KC Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi, again unaligned to either bloc, won big in 2019 – 10 of the state’s 17 seats with 42% vote share. While Congress, following its Karnataka win, hopes to make the due-soon assembly election in Telangana a mock drill for its LS foray, it’s not certain that voting patterns for the assembly polls will be mirrored in LS elections. Also complicating the equation is the fact that CPM and Owaisi’s AIMIM are KCR’s allies at the state level. The INDIA bloc has under its belt India’s second and third largest states by GSDP in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Though BJP appears set to make an issue of the sanatan dharma “controversy”, even its TN ally AIADMK’s reaction was muted. Karnataka, meanwhile, is a direct fight between Congress and BJP. There is no easy contest for any party in the south.

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