On a sultry day in the middle of March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hopped from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana addressing poll rallies as part of an unparalleled campaign blitz in the south.

The mission was aimed at improving the BJP’s numbers in the south, which had largely ignored the party even in 2019 when it crossed the 300 mark in the Lok Sabha. The BJP had then drawn a blank across the region, barring Karnataka where it won 25 of 28 seats and Telangana where it bagged four of 17.

However, neither Modi nor the BJP was willing to sit back and leave the south to tradition, Dravidian politics and the progressive outlook that helped the region shun the Sangh parivar.

Kickstarting his Kerala campaign from the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency where the BJP fielded Anil K. Antony, son of Congress stalwart and former defence minister A.K. Antony, Modi had proclaimed that the Left-ruled state would give the party “double digits”.

Recently Amit Shah predicted a big win in the south, especially in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh — where the party didn’t win a single seat in 2019 — and an improved performance in Karnataka and Telangana.

That the south, barring Karnataka, has never been saffron-friendly has come to haunt the BJP which seeks to better the 2019 tally of 29 of 131 seats from the region. But the BJP is likely to lose a number of seats in Karnataka where the ruling Congress appears to have made decent gains.

A pre-poll survey by eedina.com, a little-known Kannada news portal, that made a stunning prediction of the Congress winning 132-140 seats in last year’s Assembly polls when it won 136 seats, has made another startling assessment.

According to its survey, the Congress stands to win 13-18 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats, while the BJP-JDS combine could win 10-13 seats. If this turns out to be right, it means a huge loss for the BJP.

Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy predicted a huge slump for the BJP. “They will get hardly 12-13 seats in the south. The remaining seats will go to INDIA.”

The BJP did everything in its power to open its account in Kerala, which has become a prestige issue for the Prime Minister who predicted a double-digit gain this time. The party unleashed all it could in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur — the two segments with considerable Hindu population.

Minister of state for electronics and skill development Rajeev Chandrashekar was fielded against Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram, while actor and former Rajya Sabha member Suresh Gopi contested from Thrissur.

A confident Tharoor, who is eyeing a fourth consecutive term, was sure that the Congress and its allies would win all 20 seats in Kerala, 39 in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry.

Noted academic and socio-political commentator M.N. Karassery didn’t sound upbeat on the BJP’s prospects in Kerala.

“They are counting on Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta and Thrissur. But I don’t see them winning any. People don’t even know Rajeev Chandrashekar in Thiruvananthapuram, while Tharoor is a three-time MP who has done well and is an accomplished literary figure. There is no chance for Anil in Pathanamthitta, while Gopi has reduced his own stature by clownish behaviour without realising the difference between cinema and politics,” he told this newspaper.

The BJP is likely to do better than four seats in Telangana and gain a few in Andhra Pradesh where it is in alliance with the Telugu Desam Party and the Jana Sena Party, apart from Karnataka. The ruling YSR Congress that won 22 of 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh in 2019 is faced with a tough challenge from the NDA that’s likely to do better than the three won by the TDP last time.

For now, the BJP is still that north Indian party for most southerners who see red in saffron.