Changing gear

Will K. Annamalai help the BJP reverse its flagging fortunes in Tamil Nadu?

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

THE PICTURE SAID it all. On July 15, at an event in which former IPS officer K. Annamalai took charge as president of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, party veterans Pon Radhakrishnan and H. Raja were photographed looking at the sky mournfully. They stood in a corner of the dais as Annamalai sat on the president’s chair. The picture soon went viral on social media.

As state BJP president, the 36-year-old Annamalai succeeds L. Murugan, who was recently made Union minister. An articulate leader with a fan base among the youth, he is considered close to the BJP’s national leadership. “He is young and energetic,” said party spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy. “Our leaders wanted a young face who can fight the major dravida parties in Tamil Nadu.”

Annamalai’s political rise has been rapid. Before he joined the BJP in August last year, he was an IPS officer in Karnataka and was known to be close to B.L. Santhosh, the party’s national general secretary. A member of the dominant Gounder community in Tamil Nadu, Annamalai made a name for himself with his spirited, and often communally polarising, speeches against the dravida ideology in general and the DMK in particular. He was soon made the party’s state vice president. According to BJP sources, Annamalai has been promoted with the objective of side-lining veterans like Radhakrishnan and Raja, whom the national leadership consider a burden.