The Telugu Desam Party – TDP is gearing up to expand itself in South India to become a national party. It appears that the party has great expectations to play a greater role in national politics using Telugu regional and language card. But how far it can succeed in the states where there is little scope for plurality of politics?
The Guidelines of election commission are saying that a party should secure at least six percent votes in minimum four states to get the status of a national party. The TDP has comfortable vote percent in AP and Telangana states and expecting to enter into Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Though there is good number of Telugu speaking population in Tamilnadu, it will be very difficult to get their support as Tamil Nadu is known for Tamil nationalism and it is much stronger than Telugu regionalism.
The TDP can hope for better support from Karnataka and Odisha. Karnataka usually drives on anti incumbency in elections and prefer to be with various ideologies than supporting a single party or leader. Odisha is also prefer consolidation of politics and the scope for pluralism on regional and language lines may be insignificant.