After North East sweep, BJP looks south to boost tally before 2024 polls

The five southern states have a total of 129 Lok Sabha seats on offer and the BJP has a mere 29 of them in the current Parliament.

But bolstered by its excellent electoral show in the north-east in the just concluded polls and a changed scenario in some of the southern states between 2019 and 2024, the saffron party is looking at more voters from the south to give thumbs up in its bid to form the third NDA government in a row in 2024.

The elections scheduled in the party-ruled Karnataka and BRS-dominated Telangana later this year might just indicate if the political weather is conducive for the Lotus to bloom in the south, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has exuded confidence of the party emerging victorious in Kerala, from where the BJP has neither has an elected MP nor an MLA.

The party has rose as a challenger to the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), led by K Chandrasekhar Rao in Telangana, as demonstrated in a couple of Assembly bypolls where it emerged victorious and an