Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a massive roadshow in Thrissur on Day 2 of his visit to South India that is seen as a mega push towards the BJP campaign for the Lok Sabha elections due later this year. The party is holding a massive meet for women in the state's cultural capital, which the Prime Minister addressed shortly after.
The meet -- seen as a grand reception for the Prime Minister after the passage of the women's reservation bill in parliament in September -- was attended by over 2 lakh women. Among them are teachers, aanganwadi workers, and women from other walks of life. This is PM Modi's second visit to the city in the last five years.
While Kerala has a bipolar politics that swings between the Congress and the Left, it is also the second southern state where the BJP had managed to open its account.
In 2016, the party won one assembly seat, though it scored a duck in 2021. Its aim now is to increase its vote share and expand its footprint in the state.. The Prime Minister's roadshow today was well attended, with massive crowds lining the roads
The Prime Minister's visit, along with the Centre's economic push for the south, on the whole is expected to reduce what is being seen as a growing north-south divide. To that end, PM Modi, in his address at Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirapally, spoke of the respect Tamil culture
commanded the world over, the cultural affinity between the north and the south, making a reference to the installation of the Sengol at the new parliament and the organising of the Kashi Tamil Sangamam and Saurashtra Sangamam.
Of the 131 Lok Sabha seats in the south, the BJP has never won in 84 constituencies. Their only stronghold was Karnataka, which is currently being ruled by the Congress. In 2019, the party won 25 of Karnataka's 28 seats.
The party is now working to expand its gains and make a niche in other southern states. In the recent Telangana elections, the BJP had doubled its vote share from 7 per cent to 14 per cent, with the number of assembly seats going up from one to eight.
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