Chennai: Calling her “an entitled dynast”, Tamil Nadu’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief K. Annamalai, has hit out at Kanimozhi for alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not know Tamil history. Annamalai said the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP “is a nobody” without her father and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
“If you remove Karunanidhi out of Kanimozhi (name), she is a nobody. So that is why she doesn’t know about the sengol (sceptre). A commoner in Tamil Nadu appreciates the Sengol because it is a reflection of a common man, and Kanimozhi is a reflection of a dynasty,” he said to ThePrint.
During the first phase of En Mann, En Makkal (My land, My people), the padyatra that he began 28 July to garner support for his party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Annamalai also said the state was in need of an alternate path, the path of (PM Narendra) Modi.
Speaking to ThePrint Thursday while standing atop the Simha Vahanama (Lion Chariot), a modified vehicle, Annamalai said the BJP was poised to win many seats in the elections as Modiji has done a lot for the state and for the revival of Tamil culture.
He said that with the yatra, the party is taking to the people the initiatives, projects, schemes of the Modi government but “we also take to the common man the corruption done by DMK and their dynasty politics. We want to re-emphasise that Tamil Nadu needs a reset of the political order.”
In the past five decades, Tamil Nadu has been ruled by Dravidian parties, and the last time a national party formed the government was in 1962, when the Congress was in power.
The state BJP is hopeful that the past 10 years of Modi governance will help the party grow here, he said, adding, “(For) many things, we are planting a seed and it will take time to grow. We are visiting all the historical places, talking about freedom fighters, visiting spiritual places, which are all antithesis to the Dravidian movement and we want to awaken this in the young people.”
Several times during his march, he said that the common question is whether PM Modi will contest the coming Lok Sabha elections from Tamil Nadu. “All the 543 constituencies in India expect the PM to contest from there. It was the same in Ramanathapuram when I began the yatra and now, in Virudhunagar, people want the PM to contest from here,” he said.
“They have seen the transformative change in Varanasi (where Modi is the MP), they see the change and there is nothing wrong in people expecting this.”
Annamalai’s attack on Kanimozhi was in response to her speech in Lok Sabha a couple of days ago, during the debate on the no-confidence motion, where she alleged that the PM didn’t know Tamil history, and questioned his decision to install the sengol sceptre in Parliament. “You said it was chola sengol, you don’t know Tamil Nadu’s history properly. Do you know about the Pandian sengol — the sengol that burned, shattered when the king failed the common people. Do you know Kannagi? Please stop imposing Hindi on us and please read the Cilapattikaram,” Kanimozhi had said.
Annamalai also sought to play down the allegation of Dravidian parties that the BJP was a Hindutva party, and said that the ground reality was different.
“When we go around, people from the Muslim community come and gift us the Quran, people from the Christian faith give us the Bible…. People are fed up with this minority appeasement in Tamil Nadu. For the past two years, we have been hosting Iftar and Christmas parties but we do it our way. The BJP is not here to appease anyone… We are here against corruption, for development and this is the alternate path for the state, the path of Modiji.”
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AIADMK support & prospective alliances?
With just four legislators in the assembly, the BJP has been piggybacking on its ally, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
Dismissing the thought that there may be any disagreements between the allies, Annamalai called the yatra an effort to increase the spread of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the state.
“EPS (AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami) has his own problems and his own party to run, and I have my own party to run. We are all a part of the NDA and we want to bring Modiji back to power with a majority and that is the common goal now. It is not necessary that we have to have the same mindset on all issues… there is no problem as long as there’s a working relationship,” he said.
Attributing over 65 per cent of the current vote share to the DMK and the AIADMK, Annamalai insisted that every party had the right to grow in the state, and it was upon them to reach the people and do their best.
On the possibility of an alliance with expelled AIADMK leaders, O. Panneerselvam (OPS), V.K. Sasikala and T.T.V. Dhinakaran (who later became founding general secretary of Amma Makkal Munnettra Kazhagam), Annamalai said, “Any party which is not part of the NDA, if they think the PM has to come back to power with a huge mandate from TN, it is for them to talk to the senior leaders of the BJP.”
He added that NDA allies were a part of the inaugural function of the padyatra that took place in Rameshwaram.
OPS’s faction was not present for the NDA allies’ meeting in Delhi on 18 July, where 38 political parties had come together to showcase the bloc’s strength. But OPS’ son P. Ravindranath, the lone AIADMK MP of the NDA alliance from Tamil Nadu, though ousted from AIADMK, was invited to the 19 July NDA MP’s meeting.
Speaking to ThePrint then, political analyst Sumanth C. Raman had said this move of the NDA “does not set a good example, will break the trust on the alliance and is not a good idea”.
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BJP vs corruption
In Tamil Nadu, the BJP’s election mantra has been to fight against corruption, said Annamalai, noting that “the common man of the state has started talking about DMK’s corruption”.
“To talk about corruption, you need to be clean. I am not talking about other parties, I can vouch for the BJP and we are the cleanest political party in Tamil Nadu now. Since we talk about this, people connect with us,” he said.
While calling the united opposition block INDIA a sand castle, he said, “All they need is one party leaving for the whole alliance to collapse.”
He added that there will be a visible change in the voting pattern in the state. “You will see the results in 2024, where south Tamil Nadu and Kongu (western Tamil Nadu) belt will back the NDA alliance. For these results, you don’t have to wait till 2026.”
The BJP-AIADMK alliance registered a 30.57 per cent vote share in the 2021 state assembly elections, with the AIADMK receiving 19.39 per cent votes, and the BJP getting 3.66 per cent on the 21 seats they contested, according to the Election Commission data.
Annamalai and BJP workers walk at least 5 kilometres a day, and use vehicles to travel to the next constituency — aiming to cover two constituencies every day.
They also carry a complaint box. Annamalai told ThePrint that they had received 6,000-odd complaints by 10 August. “We sort out complaints each day and will share the details with the public at the end of each phase. The first phase is getting over on 22 August. We will facilitate whatever we can, as a party. Whatever needs to be moved as a complaint will also be forwarded.”
The yatra, which is split into five phases, will end on 11 January, 2024, in Chennai.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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