'You provoke Modi, you will be in trouble': S Gurumurthy says PM's 'South Push' confusing regional satraps

Amid BJP's all-out campaign in south India for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, noted thinker S Gurumurthy said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'South Push' has left the regional satraps "confused and flabbergasted".

In an interview to NDTV, Gurumurthy said DMK's politics had run its course and a "void" in Tamil Nadu politics has set in after the demise of two legendary figures of the state - J. Jayalalithaa and M. Karunanidhi.

Gurumurthy said BJP's Mission South was making Dravidian parties unnerved. "Tables have turned today as people are eager to reaffirm their roots. This has left the DMK flabbergasted, it is in a huge ideological confusion. It doesn't know how to tackle BJP and Narendra Modi," he said.

Pointing to "go back Modi" slogans by DMK cadres in 2018, he said that PM Modi is not a person who takes provocations lightly. "You provoke Modi, you will be in trouble," Gurumurthy said in the interview that the PM doesn't aim for quick gains, but sets long-term goals and thinks decades ahead.

DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had recently countered BJP's push in south as an attempt to "make up for the loss awaiting them in the northern states".

Asked whether the BJP would be able to increase its vote share in Tamil Nadu in the Lok Sabha election, Stalin said there was an attempt with the help of the media to construct a myth that the BJP is growing. He rejected the perception that the AIADMK may gain some traction in the election since it had snapped ties with the BJP and that its leader Edappadi K. Palaniswami had proved wrong the allegation that he and the "AIADMK were slaves to the BJP".