CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP hopes actor Rajinikanth will announce his support for the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi just before the elections.“We are fairly confident that he (Rajinikanth) will speak in support of Modi,” L Ganesan, national executive member of BJP, told ET, reiterating what he told a Tamil weekly recently. Ganesan said he is in touch with Rajinikanth over phone and last met him about four months ago.The 64-year-old actor, dubbed the Superstar, continues to have a huge fan following in these parts even decades after making his debut. His forthcoming film, Kochadaiyaan, based on motion capture technology and directed by this daughter, is slated for release in April this year, according to media reports.Ever since 1996, when he declared support for a DMK-led front, famously saying “Even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if AIADMK returns to power,” Rajinkanth is closely watched during election times.“In 1996, when he spoke, it resonated with the popular mood,” said A R Venkatachalapathy, professor at Madras Institute of Development Studies. “I think it really depends on the public mood; I don’t think he has an impact by himself.”Venkatachalapathy’s colleague and assistant professor C Lakshmanan said, “If Rajinikanth supports BJP or the prime ministerial candidate Modi, it is definitely advantage for the party. He is a big personality from the film industry and will make a difference but to what extent, we cannot estimate.”This is not the first time that the Modi-led party has been linked to Rajinikanth. When Modi addressed a rally in Tiruchi in September last year, posters showing Modi and Rajinikanth together came up. He did support an AIADMK-BJP alliance in 2004 but didn’t urge his fans to follow his choice. That alliance drew a blank in the elections.This time around, the BJP is trying to stitch together an elaborate alliance in Tamil Nadu. Besides banking on what it calls the ‘Modi wave,’ the party is trying to fight the elections jointly with MDMK, PMK and some other smaller parties. Talks with Vijayakanth’s DMDK has till now proved elusive.Last elections, BJP, on its own, got just 2% of the votes. This time, it hopes to be a strong contender to the two big Dravidian parties that dominate Tamil Nadu’s politics.