AHMEDABAD: Last month, BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit approached Narendra Modi with a request to address a closed-door gathering of youth workers in Madurai. When Modi asked the local leaders about the size of the crowd, one of them told him it could be in the region of 3,000-5,000 — considered quite decent given the fact that BJP does not have much strength on the ground there.

A week later, the same set of TN leaders called up to say the venue was now shifted to the railway ground in Trichy. Reason: preliminary response suggested the crowd would be much bigger. The rally on September 26 turned out to be historic, comparable to some big rallies that the DMK and AIADMK have held here.

Earlier in the day, Modi addressed sizeable gatherings when he went to wish Mata Amritanandamayi in Amritapuri on her 60th birthday, and Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. He spoke a bit in both Tamil and Malayalam that day.

Insiders say even Modi is amazed by the response he got in the south, beginning with Hyderabad on August 11 where the five-rupee entry fee at the rally conjured up a frenzy. Chandrababu Naidu is gravitating towards Modi, and Jaganmohan Reddy is also cozying up, keeping the Andhra and Telangana equations completely open.

Modi’s popularity has surprised even close ally J Jayalalithaa. She is aware that hectic negotiations are on with superstar Rajinikanth to become the BJP’s face here. Like in AP, the BJP had not opened its account in TN in the last two parliamentary elections and Modi is keen to change this in 2014. Even in Kerala the party has virtually no presence.

“South is where the BJP is the weakest and the Congress still has an edge. Modi has immensely gained in confidence after his visits to the south,” said a close strategist of the Gujarat CM. He said Modi’s rallies put pressure on allies and fence-sitters alike, besides giving him better bargaining power for seat sharing.

Indeed, BJP’s track-record down south has been dismal. The party has never won more than 20 out of the total 129 seats in the four southern states — Karnataka being the only state it has ruled. Sometime post-Diwali, Modi plans to organize a big rally in Bangalore where he hopes to lure BS Yeddyurappa back into the BJP fold.