All main national political parties have surprisingly decided to appoint leaders from South India. Leaders hailing from the south are now in the driving seats of most mainline parties. This development assumes significance in the national political scenario. Actually, these parties chose their leaders due to different reasons. But it is a rare thing that all national political parties are now having southern leaders.
Now, Marian Alexander Baby, aka MA Baby, has been appointed as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This development made people turn nostalgic as similar incidents had taken place in the past. The main opposition party in the Lok Sabha is moving along under the leadership of southern stalwart Mallikarjuna Kharge. The Congress eventually reached a situation that made it inevitable to have leaders from outside the Nehru family. With things going bad for the Congress, it had to choose a leader from Karnataka. Hailing from the downtrodden classes, Kharge was found fit to head the party, and he assumed charge with the blessings of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, unlike PV Narasimha Rao, who took over the reins after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Despite lacking the Nehru family’s blessings, PVN managed to remain in the saddle for around six years.
Coming back to Kharge, he is trying to run the Congress, hoping for a possible comeback at the national level. After the third consecutive win of Modi, the Congress’s strength has shaken, and reversals in Haryana and Maharashtra have made things worse. The Congress’s inability to exploit anti-incumbency in both states degraded its morale. Although it is satisfactory that the party is in power in Kharge’s home state of Karnataka, it will be a challenge for him to make it retain power there.
Both the CPI and the CPI (M) have had the experience of being led by southern leaders. Chandra Rajeswara Rao of the CPI and Pucchalapalli Sundaraiah (CPI-M) were General Secretaries of their parties, and they had left an indelible mark on the Communist movement in the country. The Left parties had southern leaders as they were popular in the Telugu-speaking areas of the composite Madras State during the first general elections in 1952. The then undivided Communist Party of India, headed by Ajoy Ghosh, did well in the Telugu regions of both Hyderabad and Madras states. The Communists scored victories in the Telangana region of Hyderabad state and the Andhra region of Madras State in the first-ever electoral battle in independent India. The popularity of the CPI in the Telugu regions paved the way for two towering leaders, C. Rajeshwara Rao and P. Sundaraiah, to take over the party’s reins.
Ironically, this happened after the split in the CPI in 1964. Indications of a possible split in the party had come out, and serious ideological differences surfaced during the party congress held in Vijayawada in 1962. Even after the split in the undivided Communist Party, the influence of Communism continued until the emergence of the TDP in 1983. Former Lok Sabha Member Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy had also served the CPI at the national level with utmost commitment. He used to interact with other Communist leaders regarding developments in AP. As the party secretary in the AP state council, he had a word with Harikishan Singh Surjit of the CPI-M over AP’s bifurcation. He is believed to have cautioned against such a move and told the youth about the Visalandhra Movement.
The undivided CPI had come to power in Kerala during the second general elections in 1957. EMS Namboodripad became the Chief Minister of Kerala. That was the first time in history that Communists came to power through the ballot. EMS became the world’s first democratically elected Communist leader.
The undivided CPI’s influence continued in Telugu regions even after its impressive win in 1952. Assembly elections were held in the newly formed Andhra state (carved out of composite Madras State in 1953) in 1955. Political observers predicted that Communists would come to power in those elections and Sundaraiah would become the Chief Minister. But the CPI lost to the Congress. Had CPI won the 1955 election, Sundaraiah would have become the first Communist leader in the world to come to power through the ballot.
Leaders hailing from Andhra like Bangaru Lakshman and M. Venkaiah Naidu had toiled hard to prove their calibre in the BJP. Lakshman had to step down as he was caught in the Tehelka tapes row. Venkaiah had his day in the BJP till the emergence of Narendra Modi.
CPI General Secretary D. Raja hails from Tamil Nadu, and as a Left leader, he is trying to check the BJP’s influence.
Now, there is a possibility of a Tamil Nadu leader becoming the BJP’s President. The name of former bureaucrat Annamalai is being considered for the party president post as he has impressed Modi with his performance. The BJP’s vote share in Tamil Nadu has gone up from 3% to 11% in the 2024 general elections. As the BJP has decided its electoral tie-ups in Tamil Nadu, Annamalai might get a chance at the national level at the behest of Modi. If that happens, leaders from the south will be steering all four major national parties like the Congress, the BJP, the CPI and the CPI-M.
It will be a record if the leadership of all four major national parties is from the south. They must be able to stop the possible injustice that can be done to southern states during the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies in future.
