Italy's League leaves northern bastions, bangs anti-migrant drum

Gianluca Cantalamessa, the centre-right Northern League candidate in Torre del Greco, Herculaneum, and Pompeii villages, poses in front of the Herculaneum archaeological site near Naples, Italy February 7, 2018. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

HERCULANEUM, Italy (Reuters) - The rightist Northern League once derided southern Italy as a crime-riddled, parasitic wasteland. It now sees it as a vote-rich territory that could help lead it to victory in next month's national election.

In a radical makeover, the League has dropped the word "Northern" from its name and is presenting itself as a national force, aggressively surfing a tide of anti-immigrant sentiment to vie for supremacy within its own centre-right bloc.