Chennai: The Bharatiya Janata Party has approved the party’s Tamil Nadu president K. Annamalai’s request for a three-month break to pursue a fellowship programme on leadership in the UK.
Annamalai has been selected for the United Kingdom Foreign Office’s Chevening Gurukul Fellowship for Leadership and Excellence programme, which starts in September. The residential programme will be conducted at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. The request for the break had been pending for a month.
A highly placed source at the BJP headquarters in Tamil Nadu told ThePrint, “The party high command has accepted Annamalai’s request to pursue the fellowship for three months and take a temporary break from party activities during this period.”
The source said that the party is unlikely to appoint any temporary replacement for the state president in his absence.
“So far, there has been no discussion on replacement or a temporary arrangement during Annamalai’s absence. The party activities will be taken care of by the second-rung leaders,” the source said, confirming that Annamalai would return to party activities on the completion of his fellowship.
Though Annamalai was shortlisted for the fellowship a month ago, he and other Tamil Nadu BJP leaders had said that he would pursue it only if the party high command granted him permission.
The source confirmed that the green signal from the top brass came during Annamalai’s visit to New Delhi on 5 August. He had also met the party’s senior leaders on 1 August to seek approval.
Annamalai, a former Indian Police Service officer, has led the BJP in Tamil Nadu for three years now. He played an instrumental role in previously forging an alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), but was later held responsible by AIADMK leaders for the collapse of the alliance last year.
He was at the helm of the party’s campaign in the state for the Lok Sabha elections, but BJP did not win any seats. He himself failed to secure a win in Coimbatore, which is considered a BJP stronghold.
Annamalai had applied for the fellowship in his capacity as the founder of We The Leaders Foundation, an NGO he founded after quitting the IPS, which is headquartered in Bengaluru in Karnataka. He is among the 12 candidates selected as Gurukul Fellows from India.
Though it was being speculated that Annamalai would be submitting his resignation as the party president, another source in New Delhi confirmed that he has not done so yet.
He is scheduled to hold the party’s district presidents’ meeting on 11 August in Tirupur district. He has also planned a public meeting on 25 August to explain the freshly presented Union Budget.
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Annamalai’s rise
Annamalai is one of the few leaders in BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, who had a meteoric rise within the ranks of the party. After resigning from the IPS, he joined the party in August 2020. Within days, he was named the vice president.
On 8 July, 2021, soon after the then Tamil Nadu BJP president L. Murugan was appointed as a Union Minister of State, Annamalai was promoted to the position of the president. He played an important role in forging the alliance with AIADMK and led the party’s campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 assembly elections.
While BJP failed to win a seat in the 2019 elections, it managed to secure four assembly seats in 2021. Annamalai, who contested from Aravakurichi assembly constituency, lost to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) candidate.
In March 2023, the BJP president expressed his willingness to break the alliance with AIADMK and have the party fight alone in the Lok Sabha elections to prepare the ground for the 2026 assembly polls. Though AIADMK officially called off its ties with BJP in September last year, it was the BJP president who first wanted to break ties with the party.
This year’s Lok Sabha elections were the first polls that AIADMK fought without a partnership with the BJP since the death of the former chief minister and party chief J. Jayalalithaa.
Under Annamalai’s leadership, Tamil Nadu BJP formed an alliance with the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and former AIADMK leaders T.T.V. Dhinakaran and O. Panneerselvam.
Though Annamalai aimed for a 25 percent vote share during the elections, the party managed to secure only 11 percent. This is, however, a record high vote share for the BJP in the state in the last three decades. The party also managed the second position in nine constituencies, pushing AIADMK to the third position.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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