The BJP has strengthened its foothold outside the heartland in the Northeast but continues to face headwinds in its effort to expand in the south beyond Karnataka, where too it expects a tough fight in Assembly elections next month.

Karnataka is the only southern state to have been a happy hunting ground for the BJP even before Narendra Modi arrived on the national scene. But party sources say internal surveys indicate a “tough challenge” to retain power.

The possibility of a setback in Karnataka has spread concern with the leadership fearing that its ripple effect could travel across the southern states, particularly Telangana, and deal a blow to the BJP’s expansion plans.

The leadership feels that they can’t claim to be a truly national party till they become strong in the south.

“The BJP doesn’t have enough grassroots leaders in Telangana and is banking on large-scale defections from the Congress,” the leader said, claiming that many Congress leaders who were demoralised by the perception of their party going down were ready to cross over.

“However, if the Congress manages to snatch Karnataka from us, it will boost the morale of the party in Telangana and then we can’t expect defections,” the leader added.

Under Modi, the BJP has made far-reaching inroads in the Northeast, outside its core “Hindi-Hindu” heartland states, but has failed to expand into newer areas.

The growth of the party in Karnataka was before the Modi era and largely credited to B.S. Yediyurappa, the now-sidelined Lingayat strongman.

The BJP smelt an opportunity in Telangana in 2019 when four of its leaders got elected to the Lok Sabha. This encouraged the party to invest a lot of energy and resources in Telangana, pitching itself as the principal challenger to chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s BRS.

“All the build-up we have managed in Telangana could collapse if we fail to win Karnataka,” a leader said.

Like in the Northeast, the BJP wants to grow in Telangana at the cost of the Congress, by poaching leaders from that party.

Beyond Karnataka and to a marginal extent in Telangana, the BJP has not been able to make any credible inroads in the other southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Kerala.

While celebrating the party’s performance in the Northeast, Modi offered a peek into the BJP’s desperation to expand in the south by claiming that the party has gained acceptability among the minority Christians.

He pointed out that both Nagaland and Meghalaya have a dominant Christian population and based on the BJP’s performance there, the party would make a bid for power in Kerala, where the community has a significant presence.

Party leaders, however, said that growing in the south still remained a tough challenge because of the “deep anti-BJP ecosystem in most states in the region”.