According to sources with the recent entry of sandalwood smuggler Veerapan's daughter Vidya rani into bjp, it seems that the national party is attempting to woo intermediary castes in a bid to consolidate its hindu vote bank. This attempt comes at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party's political strategy is complemented by the emergence of actor rajinikanth as a key challenger to the Dravidian brand of politics in tamilnadu, particularly the DMK.
Furthermore an main claimant of Vanniyars' approval is the Paattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), started by Dr Ramadoss. The community is numerically significant vote bank in northern districts of Tamilnadu. Perhaps in fact, the PMK's Vanniyar community helped the ruling AIADMK win a few seats in the 2019 local body elections. A senior bjp leader said our objective is to portray the bjp as an inclusive party for the state elections. We have chalked out a strategy to have leaders cater to different castes and religions. Pon R will be focusing on the Muslim community and H raja will cater to hard-core Hindus.
He said as protests against caa and Centre intensify, bjp feels the need to have people from different castes represent the party so voters don't look at it as a hardcore upper caste party. Moreover analysts say BJP’s attempt to rope in Veerappan’s daughter is a clear move but the desired effect could be a difficult to attain.
