The BJP appears the big enigma of these Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu, a state whose politics has been dominated for decades by the Dravidian parties.

Narendra Modi’s party, which clocked a mere 3.7 per cent vote share in the state during the 2019 general election, is for the first time leading an alliance in Tamil Nadu. And it is going for the jugular in its bid to achieve the countrywide target of 400-plus seats set by the Prime Minister.

Modi has been almost omnipresent in the campaign, with even Stalin referring to him in his rallies.

While state BJP president K. Annamalai is seeking votes on the back-the-winner plank of “everybody knows that Modi is coming back to power for a third term”, Stalin has been clear that “this election is about who should not come to power at the Centre”.

“‘Vendaam Modi (No to Modi)’ is the all-India cry,” the DMK president has been saying at his rallies.

Keen to extend the BJP’s reach in the south at a time when its electoral presence in the north and west is virtually “saturated”, Modi has for the past couple of years targeted Tamil Nadu with a charm offensive.

He has been holding meetings and events in the state since the start of the year. Recently, he appeared in an interview with a Tamil news channel wearing the traditional Tamil veshti.

MK Stalin at a tea stall during his election campaign in Salem. PTI picture

Last year, the Prime Minister had a “sacred” sengol — a Chola-style sceptre — installed in the new Parliament building.

He has also been stressing the religious links between Kashi (Varanasi) and Rameswaram, underlining that both are abodes of Lord Shiva and describing Tamil Nadu as “Kashi of the South”.

For the past two years, Modi has been organising an annual, month-long “Tamil Kashi Sangamam” in Varanasi to “celebrate the age-old links between Tamil Nadu and Kashi”.

As for the INDIA bloc, spearheaded by the DMK and the Congress, chief minister M.K. Stalin’s accommodative stance has helped him keep his formidable alliance intact since the 2019 general election and the 2021 Assembly polls.

Of the 40 seats up for grabs on April 19 — of them 39 in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry — the DMK will contest 22 while the Congress has been allotted 10, including the one in the Union Territory as earlier.

EK Palaniswami at a vegetable market during an election campaign in Madurai. PTI picture

The rest will be divided between the CPI, CPM, Dalit party VCK, the Vaiko-led MDMK, the Indian Union Muslim League and the KMDK, a sub-regional outfit from the west of the state that will be contesting on a DMK symbol.

Actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s centrist party MNM, which polled 3.7 per cent of the votes in 2019, has extended full support to the DMK-led alliance this time “in the country’s interest”. The DMK has reciprocated by assuring him a Rajya Sabha seat.

AIADMK leader and former chief minister E.K. Palaniswami’s efforts to forge a “mega alliance” — amid speculation of some bigger parties switching sides — have failed.

His alliance includes the DMDK (5 seats), another Dalit outfit Puthiya Tamizhagam (PT), and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). The AIADMK will be contesting 33 seats.

“We talked to various parties; but though they did not join our alliance, the AIADMK is strong enough to go on its own steam,” Palaniswami says.

His stress on anti-incumbency and virulent attacks on the DMK, coupled with his soft stance on the BJP, has prompted the DMK to allege a “secret BJP-AIADMK deal”.

While the DMK has kept faith with senior leaders like T.R. Baalu (Sriperumbudur), Kanimozhi (Thoothukudi), Dayanidhi Maran (Central Chennai) and A. Raja (Nilgiris), the AIADMK has largely fielded new faces.

An ambitious BJP, whose overtures to the AIADMK failed to bear fruit, is now hoping to eat into the former ally’s support base — a 34 per cent vote share in the last Assembly polls compared with the DMK’s 38 per cent.

The BJP has had to stitch together a rather thin alliance with smaller caste-based parties, the most notable being the PMK, founded by S. Ramadoss and enjoying the support of the OBC Vanniyars. The party has been allotted 10 seats.

One of the PMK’s star candidates is Sowmiya Anbumani, a green activist and wife of former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who is contesting from Dharmapuri.

The BJP has also taken into its fold two smaller AIADMK factions, one led by former chief minister, O. Panneerselvam, and the other (AMMK) by T.T.V. Dhinakaran, former MP and nephew of the late Jayalalithaa’s one-time confidante Sasikala.

A breakaway regional Congress faction, the Tamil Maanila Congress led by G.K. Vasan, son of late Congress leader G.K. Moopanar, is now a BJP ally. The NDA includes a few other smaller caste-based parties.

What the trend shows is that alliance politics is getting entrenched in Tamil Nadu with the big parties having to do business with more and more smaller outfits.

The BJP is in the fray from 23 constituencies, the figure including candidates of four smaller outfits contesting on the lotus symbol. The alliance is pinning its hopes on 10 seats, including Coimbatore (for which Modi handpicked Annamalai), Nilgiris (Union minister L. Murugan) and Tirunelveli (current MLA Nainar Nagendran), a source said.

In a surprise move, Tamil film actor R. Sarathkumar merged his party AISMK with the BJP in the presence of Modi at a rally. The BJP has paid him back by nominating his wife and actor Radhika Sarathkumar for the Virudhunagar seat.

Among the prominent Congress nominees are Karti Chidambaram (Sivaganga), S. Jyothi Mani (Karur) and Vijay Vasanth (Kanniyakumari).

The Tamil nationalist outfit NTK, which garnered 3.9 per cent of the votes in 2019, skewing the results in several constituencies, is again contesting all the 40 seats.

It has nominated slain forest brigand Veerappan’s daughter Vidya Rani for the Krishnagiri seat.