Chennai
The BJP, which is meticulously planning to get more than a toehold in Tamil Nadu ahead of the next year’s Assembly election, on Tuesday roped in former Karnataka IPS officer K Annamalai.
The 2011 batch IPS officer, who was popularly known as ‘Singham’ of the state police and had quit the IPS last year, is a native of Karur in Tamil Nadu and joined the BJP in Delhi with an avowed objective to change the perception about the BJP among the people in the Dravidian state.
Annamalai, who was until recently speculated to be the Chief Ministerial candidate of actor Rajinikanth’s proposed political party, had been making conflicting statements on his political entry.
While he had spoken about a political entry soon after he quit IPS, just last month he told a television channel that he did not think big about taking the political route to serving the people. Instead he wanted to work at the grassroots among farmers and students to develop their lot.
Throughout though he had never fought shy of his admiration for PM Modi and his policies including demonetisation, 10% reservation for the economically-weaker sections among forward communities and the National Education Policy.
“The BJP always stands for Tamils,” he said, adding there was a lot of misrepresentation about the national party in Tamil Nadu.
“I would like to be the voice of the Tamil people and take Tamil Nadu issues to the party high command,” he said, adding, he was joining the BJP as the state needed political and social change.
Joining in the presence of BJP general secretary P Muralishra Rao and Tamil Nadu BJP president L Murugan, Annamalai quoted ‘Thirukkural’ to say that he will serve the saffron party as a loyal soldier.
