BJP bludgeoned, black and blue (in Tamil Nadu)
A recent headline from The Telegraph put it all succinctly: "BJP bludgeoned, black and blue." Vinay Katiyar losing his security deposit in Rae Bareli might not have much more than a symbolic value, but in Tamil Nadu, the BJP has indeed been bludgeoned black and blue!
In the last 15 years, this is the third time that the BJP has had to contest the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu alone (without the support of the DMK or the AIADMK). In 1991, it contested in 99 constituencies, won one, polled an average of 4.01% votes in these constituencies and 1.70% overall for a total of 419,229 votes. In 1996, the corresponding numbers were 143, zero, 2.93%, 1.81% and 490,453. And in this month's elections, it contested in 225 constituencies, lost deposites in all but four of them (none of which it won), secured an average of 2.1% votes in these constituencies and 2.02% overall for a total of 666,815 votes.
When it hasn't piggy-backed on Karunanidhi's DMK or Jayalalithaa's AIADMK, the BJP's vote share has hovered around 2 per cent. That is, it has no mass base of its own, and as Jayalalithaa realized after the drubbbing in the 2004 parliamentary elections, the BJP is more of a liability! She promptly disowned the BJP after the 2004 elections, and relations soured further after the arrest of Jayendra Saraswati in November 2004. BJP State general secretary H. Raja pompously proclaimed: "The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is our enemy while the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has become our betrayer."
Come election time and it's time for a reality check. In the run-up to this month's elections, the BJP swallowed pride and sent in feelers for a tie-up with the AIADMK. BJP's Rajya Sabha MP, S. Thirunavukkarasu, vainly hoped that "the possibility of the two parties striking an alliance for the coming elections cannot be ruled out." However, Jayalalithaa wouldn't take the bait. Spurned by its former allies before the elections, and by an overwhelming majority of the electorate in the elections, the BJP in Tamil Nadu has been emphatically and unequivocally consigned to the margins. All that the BJP's press release could say was this: "Barring in West Bengal, the BJP had contested the polls in the other States on its own and got a good response ... These elections were held in States where the BJP did not have marked influence."
"Good response"? Perhaps the BJP could take solace in that it has now gotten 176,362 more votes than in 1996, but this increase is primarily due to the 82 more constituencies it contested. The BJP's vote-share has only increased by 0.2% in the last 10 years, whereas newly-formed parties like those of actor Vijaykanth have reaped far higher benefits from publc discontent with the DMK and the AIADMK. In fact, in the 15 constituencies that the BJP got more than 5% votes in 1996, its vote-share has now decreased on an average by 6.8%. Not what you would expect of an up-and-coming party, right?
The four constituencies where the BJP retained its security deposit deserve closer scrutiny. Colachel, Padmanabhapuram, Thiruvattar and Killiyoor all fall in the Kanyakumari district at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu. This region has been one of the BJP "bastions" (where it has polled 16% or higher, but has only won once), and the BJP seems to have managed to retain much of its support base here, unlike in other erstwhile "bastions".
Interestingly, Kanyakumari district was one of the regions targeted by the RSS's Sewa Bharati for tsunami relief. Sewa Bharati also claims to have done relief work in Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, and Chennai, but the BJP had no solid base to build on in these regions. In the past, American dollars and British pounds have funded RSS-indoctrination programs in Gujarat and Orissa under the pretext of disaster relief [see The Foreign Exchange of Hate: IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva and In Bad Faith? British Charity and Hindu Extremism ] Post tsunami, photos of relief work carried out by Sewa Bharati again confirm RSS-indoctrination. The question, then, is: Have foreign funds, funnelled through the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) and Sewa International, helped the BJP retain ground in these four constituencies? Perhaps.
Electoral statistics don't always tell the whole story, but it surely is cause for alarm when the IDRF claims to have raised more than a million dollars for tsunami relief.
A recent headline from The Telegraph put it all succinctly: "BJP bludgeoned, black and blue." Vinay Katiyar losing his security deposit in Rae Bareli might not have much more than a symbolic value, but in Tamil Nadu, the BJP has indeed been bludgeoned black and blue!
In the last 15 years, this is the third time that the BJP has had to contest the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu alone (without the support of the DMK or the AIADMK). In 1991, it contested in 99 constituencies, won one, polled an average of 4.01% votes in these constituencies and 1.70% overall for a total of 419,229 votes. In 1996, the corresponding numbers were 143, zero, 2.93%, 1.81% and 490,453. And in this month's elections, it contested in 225 constituencies, lost deposites in all but four of them (none of which it won), secured an average of 2.1% votes in these constituencies and 2.02% overall for a total of 666,815 votes.
When it hasn't piggy-backed on Karunanidhi's DMK or Jayalalithaa's AIADMK, the BJP's vote share has hovered around 2 per cent. That is, it has no mass base of its own, and as Jayalalithaa realized after the drubbbing in the 2004 parliamentary elections, the BJP is more of a liability! She promptly disowned the BJP after the 2004 elections, and relations soured further after the arrest of Jayendra Saraswati in November 2004. BJP State general secretary H. Raja pompously proclaimed: "The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is our enemy while the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has become our betrayer."
Come election time and it's time for a reality check. In the run-up to this month's elections, the BJP swallowed pride and sent in feelers for a tie-up with the AIADMK. BJP's Rajya Sabha MP, S. Thirunavukkarasu, vainly hoped that "the possibility of the two parties striking an alliance for the coming elections cannot be ruled out." However, Jayalalithaa wouldn't take the bait. Spurned by its former allies before the elections, and by an overwhelming majority of the electorate in the elections, the BJP in Tamil Nadu has been emphatically and unequivocally consigned to the margins. All that the BJP's press release could say was this: "Barring in West Bengal, the BJP had contested the polls in the other States on its own and got a good response ... These elections were held in States where the BJP did not have marked influence."
"Good response"? Perhaps the BJP could take solace in that it has now gotten 176,362 more votes than in 1996, but this increase is primarily due to the 82 more constituencies it contested. The BJP's vote-share has only increased by 0.2% in the last 10 years, whereas newly-formed parties like those of actor Vijaykanth have reaped far higher benefits from publc discontent with the DMK and the AIADMK. In fact, in the 15 constituencies that the BJP got more than 5% votes in 1996, its vote-share has now decreased on an average by 6.8%. Not what you would expect of an up-and-coming party, right?
The four constituencies where the BJP retained its security deposit deserve closer scrutiny. Colachel, Padmanabhapuram, Thiruvattar and Killiyoor all fall in the Kanyakumari district at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu. This region has been one of the BJP "bastions" (where it has polled 16% or higher, but has only won once), and the BJP seems to have managed to retain much of its support base here, unlike in other erstwhile "bastions".
Interestingly, Kanyakumari district was one of the regions targeted by the RSS's Sewa Bharati for tsunami relief. Sewa Bharati also claims to have done relief work in Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, and Chennai, but the BJP had no solid base to build on in these regions. In the past, American dollars and British pounds have funded RSS-indoctrination programs in Gujarat and Orissa under the pretext of disaster relief [see The Foreign Exchange of Hate: IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva and In Bad Faith? British Charity and Hindu Extremism ] Post tsunami, photos of relief work carried out by Sewa Bharati again confirm RSS-indoctrination. The question, then, is: Have foreign funds, funnelled through the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) and Sewa International, helped the BJP retain ground in these four constituencies? Perhaps.
Electoral statistics don't always tell the whole story, but it surely is cause for alarm when the IDRF claims to have raised more than a million dollars for tsunami relief.
posted by Sangh Slayer at 8:44 PM
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