Will Amit Shah fulfill dream of Upadhyay?
The way Home Minister Shri Amit Shah, who is considered to be the 'Chanakya' of modern politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is running a victory campaign in the South, it can be said that he is the founder of his party, the late Philosopher Late Shri Amit Shah. Deen Dayal Upadhyay wants to fulfill his dream, for which he is running a massive campaign. In 1967, the Bharatiya Janata Party (formerly the Jana Sangh) formed the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Party. When Deendayal Upadhyay was made his national president, he tried to give a message by holding the party convention in the city of Calicut, Kerala, that his party could not be limited to North India only. Self. Upadhyay was of the view that by revealing the party's economic policies, its foothold could also be extended towards South India. His principle of Integral Humanism and Antyodaya can connect every citizen of India with the Jana Sangh or the BJP. At the same time, cultural nationalism has the irrepressible power to connect the North with the South. Through cultural nationalism, that soul of India can be awakened which awakens in every Indian a sense of unwavering faith in India. This experiment was first done by Adi Shankaracharya in the 9th century. Adi Shankaracharya had taken strong measures to keep Indians connected by establishing 'Shankaracharya Peeths' in all the four directions of India. Of course, it was a pan-Indian form of Hindu nationalism, but it contained the basic soul of India.
Hindu nationalism is not limited to any one community but it is a dimension of keeping all Indians connected to their native culture. Those who try to present it in a communal character try to separate 'kernels from mangoes'. Self. Upadhyaya's vision was that the whole of India should be as ready to serve its deprived people as Sant Ravidas wanted.
Serve you wherever I go.
Neither Thakur nor Deva.
Self. Upadhyaya, in his philosophy, considered the service of Daridra Narayan as service to God. If we look closely, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has taken decisive steps in this direction in the last 11 years of his rule on the social and economic front, due to which his popularity is continuously increasing. Although his opponents are not able to accept this truth, the reality is that there is no other leader on the ground who can challenge Mr. Modi's popularity. Now this popularity is also visible at the regional level, the only reason for this is the pro-poor schemes and schemes of the Modi government. His opponents argue that when the Modi government is providing free ration to 80 crore people, how did poverty come down from 27 to 6 percent in the last decade? Suffice it to say that the poverty norms are no longer the same as they were during Indira Gandhi's regime. Due to the qualitative change in the socio-economic structure of India due to the policies of economic liberalization, the empowerment of the poor has been done through market forces and Shri Modi has tried to strengthen this by running his pro-poor schemes.
Obviously, it was bound to have an impact on politics as well. For this reason, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP got around 19 percent votes in Tamil Nadu. Now the Home Minister wants to take this vote percentage to the point where the BJP candidates can win. Recently, Mr. Shah was on a two-day visit to Tamil Nadu and addressed a huge public meeting in Madurai in which he targeted the DMK government of MK Stalin in the state and announced that in the 2026 assembly elections, the state will have a coalition government of BJP and AIADMK. The BJP has naturally assumed the role of the main opposition party in Tamil Nadu by tying up with the AIADMK. Addressing the rally, Mr Shah challenged Mr Stalin to implement all pro-poor schemes of the Centre and empower the poor. The State Government can no longer separate the people of the State from the rest of India in a frenzy over Tamil language. During Stalin's reign, Tamil language could not become the medium of higher education. In Tamil Nadu, the 'Hindu Munnani' organization has been active since the days of the Jana Sangh. The organisation, with the help of the BJP, is organising an 11-day religious convention in Madurai from June 22 to offer prayers to Lord Murugan, but the Stalin government is blocking it and the matter has reached the High Court.
The convention is being held at a private venue expected to attract lakhs of people, but the Tamil Nadu government has maintained that it may be beyond the control of the local police to manage the crowd. State BJP President Nainar Nagendran said that the Stalin government is trying to control the speakers and the crowd without any reason. People in South India have the same reverence for Lord Murugan as they do for Lord Rama in North India. By stopping those who show faith in Lord Murugan, the Stalin government may become unpopular with the general public. The state government is afraid of this, so it is looking for a middle path. The state BJP president also said that Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan is being invited to the convention and he has a lot of popularity among the people of Tamil Nadu, which is expected to attract huge crowds. The Madurai Murugan Conference is now going to play a very important role in Tamil Nadu politics. The BJP is seeing it as an experiment in its cultural nationalism, which seems to be overshadowing the DMK. However, even during the regime of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP tried to enter Tamil Nadu and made Mr. Jana Krishnamurthy its national president in 2001-02. Janakrishnamurthy was a dedicated worker and had been associated with the party since the days of the Jana Sangh. Prior to that, Bangaru Laxman of Andhra Pradesh was the BJP president. But the BJP's attempt to enter Tamil Nadu was unsuccessful. But Mr. Shah has turned all the political equations upside down in such a way that the footsteps of the BJP in Tamil Nadu are being heard. However, in the state of Kerala, the vote percentage of BJP is now increasing steadily in urban areas. The reason for this is believed to be that the Marxist party, which is influential in the state's politics, is basically considered a Hindu party, while the Congress and other parties have a minority vote in the majority.
Therefore, as the BJP is making strides in this state, the graph of the Marxist party is coming down. But it is Mr. Shah's strategy that is bringing the BJP up in South India. Anyway, in the southern states of Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has now become powerfully effective.