Retreat or strategic pause? Annamalai takes vow of silence on BJP-AIADMK alliance, for now

The Print

16-07-2025

Annamalai, who once met the press frequently and rarely missed an opportunity to attack Dravidian parties including BJP ally AIADMK, told reporters Monday that he won't be commenting on political matters until August. 'I miss you all. I genuinely miss taking questions from you. I learnt a lot from you all. I am not talking about anything now. I will begin to talk from August onwards,' he told reporters in Coimbatore after an event.
'He has not let his guard down. He attends even small meetings of the party, wherever he is invited. However, he has decided not to speak much in front of the media as he hasn't got a formal role at the state level,' a source close to Annamalai told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Chennai: The once fiery K. Annamalai appears to have toned down his aggression since stepping down as president of BJP's Tamil Nadu unit, largely confining himself to attending meetings in his stronghold in the western part of the state. His supporters say the former IPS officer-turned-politician's silence is a strategic pause—and not a retreat.
When ThePrint reached him, Annamalai said he did not have any agenda to talk about. 'I will be talking after August,' he said without elaborating on the rationale behind the timeline.
A native of Karur in the western region of Tamil Nadu, Annamalai belongs to the Gounder community, a dominant OBC grouping. During his tenure as state BJP president, the party's vote share in Tamil Nadu surged to 11 percent in the 2024 general election from 3 percent in the previous general election, though the party did not win any seats.
Sources in the BJP told ThePrint that Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised Annamalai, who stepped down as state party president in April, a significant role at the national level. Though there was speculation that he might be inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers, or given a key organizational role at the national level, he was appointed as a member of the party's national council a day after his resignation.
His exit as state president came as the BJP revived its alliance with the AIADMK for the 2026 assembly elections.
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Caste equations drove Annamalai's exit
A senior BJP leader, who did not wish to be identified, said Annamalai's resignation was driven by caste considerations and not because of his criticism of Dravidian icons.
'It was not just because he was criticising the Dravidian icons. Even now, leaders in our party criticise the Dravidian icons. One of the main reasons is that both Annamalai and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami belong to the Gounder community. So the party wanted to avoid overlapping leadership profiles from the same community in the same region,' the senior BJP leader told ThePrint.
BJP and AIADMK, which joined hands after the demise of former chief minister and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 2021 Assembly elections together.
However, a year before the 2024 general election, Annamalai began to assert that BJP would go it alone in the polls. His subsequent criticism of Dravidian icons, including former chief ministers C.N. Annadurai and Jayalalithaa, led to the break in the alliance in September 2023.
In April 2025, after the BJP formally declared MLA Nainer Nagendran as its state president, the AIADMK and BJP officially revived their alliance for the 2026 assembly elections.
Asked about Annamalai's role, BJP state vice president Narayanan Thirupathy told ThePrint that the national leadership will decide a role for him.'The BJP is not a regional party, which is run by dynasties. He will be given an appropriate role for his potential,' he said.
Annamalai wanted BJP govt in 2026
Although AIADMK and BJP reunited after Annamalai's exit, tensions within the NDA remain, with the BJP favouring a coalition government and the AIADMK advocating for an independent government under its leadership.
Annamalai, who had earlier pitched for a BJP-led government after the 2026 election, has not commented on the coalition government issue in recent weeks. But on 12 June, he seemed to strike a defiant note at a press meet in Tirupur when he said that he would not say that a coalition government would be formed, but a BJP government should be formed.
'In 2026, I would not call it a coalition government. I would say it's the BJP government only. I expect the BJP to contest in more seats. I would work for the development of the BJP till the end. I would abide by the decisions of the party,' he told reporters.
The BJP and the AIADMK publicly dismissed Annamalai's assertive statement, saying the national leadership's decision was final. Former BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan reiterated that the party would follow the decision taken by the national leadership.
A source in Coimbatore close to Annamalai told ThePrint that it was after this controversy that Annamalai chose to remain silent on the AIADMK-BJP alliance. 'He is a BJP karyakarta (worker) and will only speak for his own party. His stance is that the BJP's influence in the state has increased, and both the Dravidian parties are corrupt,' the source told ThePrint.
'However, the national leadership feels that the AIADMK-BJP strategic alliance is necessary to defeat the ruling DMK. Hence, he did not want to antagonize the alliance as well as his own party people,' the source added.
Although Annamalai has not changed his stance on the BJP expanding its footprint in the state on its own, he also has not turned away from meeting AIADMK leaders.
'In the last couple of months, he met former AIADMK ministers Sengottaiyan and S.P. Velumani on different occasions and greeted them,' said the source quoted above.
On the other hand, newly elected BJP state president Nagendran has been cordial with the AIADMK party leadership and workers. At the launch of AIADMK's campaign on 7 July, he said EPS would be the chief minister of an AIADMK-led NDA government in Tamil Nadu.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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