The North-South narrative propelled by Congress is not only damaging to Congress but also dangerous for the Country.

After losing the assembly elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, many Congress members & sympathizers started spreading a narrative of North-South divide where they tag as North-Indians are immature, unintelligent, illiterate etc. I.N.D.I.A ally DMK too given some anti-Sanatana remarks and recently DMK MP’s ‘Goumutra states’ remark coupled with Congress’s Telangana CM elect’s ‘DNA of Bihar’ remark created a toxic division of ‘North-South’. The most disturbing fact is that top leadership of Congress are silent on it.

I can understand that the Congress people are frustrated by the loss in three Hindi heartland states and may be suddenly started praising South India just because they wrested power in Telangana from BRS. However, as a national party, Congress must have learnt how to accept the defeat gracefully and conduct in such a manner so that their dissent or frustration shouldn’t affect the unity & integrity of the country. This narrative of north-south divide, not only damaging to the interest of Congress party but also dangerous for the entire country.

For the ready reference of Congress party, I am detailing how both Congress & BJP faired in five states of South India in previous assembly election as well as previous general election. The following two tables are the votes fetched by both Congress & BJP in South India.

                          Last Assembly Elections

Last Parliamentary Election

Note- In some reference, the total voter turn out is not mentioned, thus the same is calculated dividing the number of votes collected by a party divided by the vote-share percentage of that party. It’s an approximation but won’t affect the final out-put.

From the above two tables one can gauge the political presence of Congress and BJP. In assembly elections Congress has just a mere 20.80% vote share compared to BJP’s 13.12% vote share. Here point to be noted that Congress is significantly present in four states (Kerala, Karnataka, TN & Telangana) out of which it’s top two parties in three states. On the other hand, BJP is present in just one state Karnataka and a minor player in Telangana. Both Congress and BJP are invisible in Andhra Pradesh. So, the difference between Congress and BJP in assembly elections is just around 7%. The same comes down to around 3% when general election is considered. Most interestingly BJP is contesting alone in these five south Indian states whereas Congress has strong regional allies in TN, Kerala & Telangana yet BJP got 29 MP seats compared to 27 seats won by Congress from these five states. If Congress thins that South Indi rejects BJP, does that seat numbers suggest South India accepts Congress. Point is simple, north or south, wherever there’s strong regional parties, neither Congress nor BJP has any significant role. The same is true in North Indi also. If BJP is insignificant in TN, AP & Kerla, Congress too insignificant in West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar where BJP is among the top two parties. Does that mean North-India rejects Congress?

If at all Congress continue to spread the North-South divide, will it help Congress? The answer is simply no because, there could be a North-India polarisation which will benefit BJP and not only damage Congress but also it will damage to it’s north-Indian reginal allied parties. TMC, RJD, NCP, JMM may have to shiver the ties with Congress in apprehension of anti-Congress polarisation in North-India.

Let’s consider there’s a South-Indian polarisation happens. Will it help Congress. The answer is no because there are lot of strong regional parties in South-India and this North-South will benefit them more and Congress may be viewed as a North-Indian party as its top leadership are from North-India.  So, such immature & irresponsible narrative is damaging to Congress itself.

How it dangerous for the country? There are some groups who are trying to incite anti-North Indian sentiment (or say Anti-Hindi sentiment) in parts of Tamil Nadu & Karnataka. Till date there’s no anti-South Indian sentiment in North India except some social media influencers or youtuber. But when such narrative is peddled for petty politics, the entire North India & South India may be confronting each other violently. Point to be noted that a country always driven by sentiments. When sentiments are confronting on region basis, then things go wrong very quickly, and the entire country suffers irreparably. Good that there are many sane people in south and North India who would never allow such tings to happen. 

My simple question Rahul Gandhi is that when you cite ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukan’ and claim for ‘Bharat Jodo’, how are you silent on your people’s narrative of North-South divide’. When you claim of connecting the country how can your party members are trying to be dividing the country. In politics it’s not enough to claim something noble. You must practice the same also.

Hopefully the aware and smart people of India despite their political differences won’t fall in divisive traps of any political party.