The Bharatiya Janata Party, to whom many political pundits gave a fair chance of winning 2-3 seats in Tamil Nadu, has come a cropper. Nor has any of the sundry parties that allied with it done any better. The score card reads ‘NDA 0’. Even the one constituency, Dharmapuri, in which BJP’s partner, PMK was leading, has slipped out of its hands. 

BJP’s Tamil Nadu President, K Annamalai, for all his dash and splendour and his gallivanting across the State under his ‘En mann, En makkal’ walk-across programme, could not muster up enough votes to go to the Lok Sabha. 

Yet, the party can take heart in the fact that it has achieved a feat worthy of note — garnering a two-digit vote percentage. 

As of 8:03 pm, BJP had a vote share of 11.10 per cent against its name — a remarkable rise for a party whom the opponents used to derisively taunt as ‘below-NOTA party’, a reference to its vote share being even lesser than ‘none of the above’. People would press the NOTA button than choose BJP. 

But, that has changed. BJP has emerged asthe third largest party in Tamil Nadu, after the two biggies, DMK and (its erstwhile NDA partner) AIADMK. These two parties have a vote share of 26.57 per cent and 20.48 per cent, respectively. The Congress, piggybacking on DMK, has got a share less than BJP, with 10.80 per cent.  

Furthermore, it has turned out to be the number 2 party in eight constituencies, beating AIADMK in five of them — in the rest, it got the better of DMK’s partners. 

Background 

BJP’s satisfactory show in vote-share gain needs to be understood against the backdrop of a couple of trends in the state of the party’s Tamil Nadu unit in the run up to the elections.  

First, there was sharp infighting with many second level leaders not co-operating with Annamalai — a point that the party’s top brass is said to have taken note of. One such leader, who was denied a ticket (who requested not to be named) told this writer that Annamalai was a “good speaker but not a good administrator.” It is widely expected that there would be a shake-up in BJP’s TN unit soon. 

Second, selection of candidates was not—it is alleged by many insiders—done in a proper, ‘horses for courses’ manner. In a few cases, candidates did not hail from the constituency that they were asked to contest from. For example, P Karthiyayini, who fought from Chidambaram, was from Vellore. Likewise, Pon V Balaganapathy, who contested from Tiruvallur was not a local. Also, in some cases people who had worked hard in a constituency were asked to contest from elsewhere. A good example is that of Prof. Raama Sreenivasan, who had cultivated Virudhunagar but was instead asked to contest from Madurai. Likewise, A Asuvathaman had worked to develop Cuddalore or Kallakurichi, but was told to contest from Tiruvannamalai.

While it is not clear as to who was behind these decisions, many party insiders say that if these had been done properly, BJP’s vote share would have been higher.

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