{"id":63878,"date":"2024-05-07T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T03:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/may\/07\/can-modi-finally-win-over-the-southern-states-and-reshape-indias-electoral-map"},"modified":"2024-05-07T12:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T03:00:03","slug":"can-modi-finally-win-over-the-southern-states-and-reshape-indias-electoral-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=63878","title":{"rendered":"Can Modi finally win over the southern states and reshape India\u2019s electoral map?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Making a breakthrough in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is crucial to the BJP\u2019s ambitions to gain an even larger parliamentary majority \u2013 but it won\u2019t be easy<\/p>\n<p>Under Tamil Nadu\u2019s scorching midday sun, K Annamalai waved at the crowd gathered around his campaign bus. Some people stretched their babies upwards to be touched by him, others threw flower petals and passed gifts through the window. A sea of mobile phones vied for space as people tried to squeeze the candidate into their selfies.<\/p>\n<p>Here in Coimbatore, an industrial city in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has been working overtime. Over months, thousands of volunteers and party workers have taken to the streets \u2013 backed hundreds of locally-targeted WhatsApp groups and a highly-organised social media campaign across YouTube, Facebook and Instagram \u2013 whipping up a frenzy around Annamalai, one of the BJP\u2019s most talked-about candidates.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/may\/07\/can-modi-finally-win-over-the-southern-states-and-reshape-indias-electoral-map\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Making a breakthrough in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is crucial to the BJP\u2019s ambitions to gain an even larger parliamentary majority \u2013 but it won\u2019t be easyUnder Tamil Nadu\u2019s scorching midday sun, K Annamalai waved at the crowd gathered around his campaign bu&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,433,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63878"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63901,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63878\/revisions\/63901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}