For a party that claims to be the largest in the world and which dominates India like a colossus, the scenes that unfolded this week were most unusual. The sight of party president Nitin Nabin and Home Minister Amit Shah spending hours trying to pacify a man who is yet to win an election but was threatening to leave the party raised eyebrows across the political spectrum.
Kuppuswamy Annamalai, the IPS-officer-turned-politician who was the state chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Tamil Nadu for three years, was miffed with the BJP high command and wanted to quit and set up his own political party.
In normal circumstances, the BJP would not have bothered. But with Tamil Nadu and Kerala being the last frontiers of sorts for the BJP—and with Annamalai having given them a brief glimpse of hope of a breakthrough in Tamil Nadu—the party was not keen to let him go.
By 5 June, Friday, the party’s attempts to pacify him had failed. In a statement, the BJP said Nitin Nabin had accepted Annamalai's resignation, ending days of speculation.
A Growing Rift With the High Command
Ever since he was replaced as the state party president in 2025, Annamalai had been in a sulk. His large army on social media had kept up demands for his reinstatement, wailing that the BJP would be wiped out without him. Indeed, to some extent his disagreement with the party high command over the alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) had been vindicated with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) suffering a big defeat in the recent Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
There has long been a view that the former police officer was given a long rope by the BJP. Within two years of joining the party he was made state party chief, something almost unheard of in a party like the BJP. Soon, he came to be seen as a favourite of the Prime Minister.
Before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he advocated going in alone and exited the alliance with the AIADMK. In the elections, both the NDA and the AIADMK were routed and Annamalai was blamed by many, especially as the BJP fell short of a majority and results showed that an alliance with the AIADMK may have yielded up to 15 seats. His term as state BJP chief ended—and he was replaced by Nainar Nagendran, a former AIADMK man seen as close to former Chief Minister and AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi Palanisamy.
The Annamalai Phenomenon
During his stint as Tamil Nadu’s party president, Annamalai was the centre of attraction across the political landscape of Tamil Nadu.
With his strident attacks on the then ruling DMK, it was almost as if the BJP with just 4 MLAs in the Assembly was the real Opposition instead of the AIADMK that had 66 MLAs. Every move of Annamalai got huge traction on social media—and with a separate IT wing (distinct from the party IT wing) to exclusively promote him—Annamalai was on a charge.
The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections—though disastrous in terms of seats for the BJP—did yield a significant increase in vote share. The NDA alliance polled over 18 percent votes, and the BJP itself which contested 23 Lok Sabha Seats edged to over 11 percent. For a party that was derisively called a 3 percent party, this was an impressive jump.
However, Annamalai was deeply unpopular with the leaders of the state unit of the party who saw him as an interloper. With a few exceptions, they ganged up against him, and he did little to reach out to them. During his tenure, the state BJP remained a divided house, with a passionate younger pro-Annamalai faction pitched against the party's old guard. When he was replaced as state president, it appeared that his political career had hit a speed breaker—but not for long.
Could Annamalai Go Solo?
The electoral success of actor Vijay and his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) must surely have inspired Annamalai to try to go solo. Whether he can attract a similarly large voter base remains uncertain.
If he does strike out on his own, he could potentially draw a sizeable portion of the BJP's limited vote share, as well as a section of the AIADMK's support base. Whether that would be enough to emerge as a serious challenger remains to be seen.
With his resignation now accepted, the question is no longer whether Annamalai will leave, but what will come next. Whether he succeeds in building an independent political force remains uncertain. For the BJP, the loss of the party's most recognisable face in the state leaves it searching once again for a leader capable of generating the same political momentum.
(Sumanth C Raman is a television anchor and political analyst. He tweets @sumanthraman. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)