PM Modi’s recent utterances have given wings to speculation that he may contest the forthcoming Loksabha elections from Tamil Nadu. Union Home minister Amit Shah’s recent visit to Tamil Nadu furthered the speculations that PM Modi may contest from Vellore.
“When Tamil Nadu grows, India grows.” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi eulogised the significance of Tamil Nadu with words for the ages. But in politics, every sentence has a nuance and is pregnant with possibilities. Was India’s PM sounding the poll bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections?
As though it was a giveaway line, BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai had said that Narendra Modi was an “insider” and not an outsider in the south.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent visit to Vellore further fuelled speculations that PM Modi may contest from Vellore. Shah insinuated that a Tamil could become India’s future Prime Minister. It’s also held that Shah was suggesting that Modi (and no other) would be a Tamil in spirit when he spoke about a ‘Tamil PM’.
At a rally in Vellore, Shah had drummed up the Tamil symbolism of the sengol, urging people of the state to hand the NDA 25 seats in the general election as a gesture towards Modi for the gold-plated silver sceptre.
However, during Shah’s programmes in Vellore, Puthiya Needhi Katchi founder A C Shanmugam, the alliance candidate in 2019, was absent.
We may recall that the DMK alliance won one of the two seats in Vellore by a thin margin in 2019. The other belonged to Chidambaram, which Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi’s Thol Thirumavalavan bagged by 3,000 votes. There were allegations that DMK bought voters, following cash seizures from their leaders.
Should Modi opt for a southern seat, it will be a second seat for him, given that he is expected to contest from his current constituency of Varanasi, sources revealed to media outlets. In 2014, Modi contested from two seats, Vadodara and Varanasi. He opted only for Varanasi in 2019.
The ruling party is believed to be considering Ramanathapuram in which the Hindu pilgrimage site of Rameswaram falls, it’s reported.
Rameswaram is close to the Adam’s Bridge which has a mythological significance. It’s a bridge that Ram’s army built connecting Lanka. In political circles, it’s thought that the BJP would cash in on this sentiment.
Kanyakumari, the lone seat the BJP had won in 2014 but lost in 2019, is the second constituency in consideration. The ruling party seems eager to build its narrative here of a united India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. For sure, winning seats and hearts in Tamil Nadu would further the BJP’s mission of cultural nationalism.
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