K. Annamalai, former IPS officer of the Karnataka cadre and vice-president of the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was on Thursday appointed president of the State unit. Arun Singh, the party’s national general secretary and headquarter in-charge, made the announcement.
Mr. Annamalai succeeds L. Murugan, who was, on Wednesday, inducted into the Union Council of Ministers as a Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying and Information & Broadcasting.
Through the choice of the former police officer, who belongs to the community of Vellala Gounders, and the inclusion of Mr. Murugan, who is from Arundathiyars, the party appears to have performed a balancing act in social engineering.
As soon as the news was out that Mr Murugan was being made the Union Minister, the name of Mr Annamalai was doing rounds as one of the possible contenders for the post, apart from those of Nainar Nagendran, Karuppu Muruganandam and R. Srinivasan.
The appointment marked a rapid rise for Mr. Annamalai, as he joined the BJP hardly a year ago – August 2020. Within days of joining the party, he was made one of the vice-presidents of the State unit.
In the Assembly elections in April this year, Mr Annamalai was fielded in Aravakurichi of Karur district, a constituency known for a considerable presence of Muslims. Despite knowing that it would be a big challenge for him to win, Mr Annamalai put up a fight as he had reached out to voters of the religious minority by promising houses for them. He bagged around 68,550 votes but lost to the DMK’s candidate by a margin of about 25,000 votes.
A mechanical engineering and an MBA graduate, the 36-year-old Annamalai, who hails from Thottampatti of Karur district, joined the police force in Karnataka in 2011. He was the Superintendent of Police for Udupi and Ramanagara districts. He had earned the reputation of being a tough officer for taking up measures to resolve students' issues, communal problems and criminal activities. At the time of quitting the police service, he was Deputy Commissioner (South), Bengaluru.
