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Opinion Inside Track: Push from AIADMK

Tamil Nadu BJP workers flew to Delhi seeking the removal of Annamalai, the opinionated BJP state president. But the party high command still has faith in the former police officer, despite his poor advice in the Lok Sabha polls.

At Shah’s press conference in Chennai, the backdrop with the NDA logo was hastily replaced with the BJP’s symbol. At 4 pm the next day, Shah tweeted that Annamalai was stepping down as state chief and that the BJP-AIADMK tie-up was back on track at 5 pm.

Coomi Kapoor

April 20, 2025 12:13 PM IST First published on: Apr 20, 2025 at 07:06 AM IST

Tamil Nadu BJP workers flew to Delhi seeking the removal of Annamalai, the opinionated BJP state president. But the party high command still has faith in the former police officer, despite his poor advice in the Lok Sabha polls. Amit Shah ticked off the Tamil Nadu delegation, asking them to return to Chennai to do booth work and not travel to Delhi to complain against leaders. However, when Shah arrived in Chennai on April 10 for the expected tie-up with the AIADMK, he found its leader E K Palaniswami missing and evasive about the proposed alliance. At Shah’s press conference in Chennai, the backdrop with the NDA logo had to be hastily replaced with the BJP’s lotus symbol. At 4 pm the next day, Shah tweeted that Annamalai was stepping down as state president and that the BJP-AIADMK tie -up was back on track at 5 pm. Significantly, the new BJP state president, Nainar Nagendran, was formerly with the AIADMK. EPS made clear that he is no pushover. In fact, he even expressed doubts whether the BJP would necessarily be represented in the eventuality of an AIADMK cabinet.

Absence noted

Those who attended the AICC meet in Ahmedabad earlier this month, praised the organisational skills of the Gujarat Congress, headed by Shaktisinh Gohil, comparing them very favourably with previous mismanagement at the Udaipur and Jaipur sessions, when Ashok Gehlot was chief minister. Ironically, the state Congress has not demonstrated similar organisation skills on the campaign trail, with the party losing in seven consecutive Assembly elections. One reason for selecting Gujarat was to reclaim Sardar Patel’s legacy, which has been assiduously appropriated by the BJP. But the venue of the meet, Shahi Baug, which has been renamed the Sardar Patel Memorial Museum, is actually a Mughul palace where Shah Jahan once lived and with which the Sardar had no association whatsoever in his lifetime. Priyanka Gandhi’s absence was much commented upon. While it was said she had sought advance permission to be absent, an argument over a last-minute invitation to a Congressperson as a permanent invitee to the CWC was an additional reason.

Perils of interfering

Two fiery TMC MPs, Kalyan Banerjee and Mahua Moitra, traded insults in full public view outside the Election Commission in Delhi last week. But it was the non-Bengali TMC MP from Bardhaman-Durgapur, former cricketer Kirti Azad, who got pulled up by party chief Mamata Banerjee. Azad was accused of leaking the explosive exchanges between the two feuding MPs on the TMC MPs’ WhatsApp group to a journalist. The screenshot of the messages even fell into the hands of the BJP media adviser, who used it to embarrass the TMC. The quarrel originated because Kalyan Banerjee, the party chief whip, ignored Moitra while collecting signatures for a TMC petition to the Election Commission. When Moitra turned up for the MPs’ protest the next day, she was furious to discover that she had not been consulted. When she chided Kalyan Banerjee, who colleagues claim has become increasingly short-tempered of late — he reportedly broke a glass bottle during a heated exchange on the Waqf Bill at a parliamentary standing committee meeting — he flew into a rage and lashed out at Moitra, dubbing her a “versatile international lady”. She retaliated by asking the bewildered BSF and CRPF forces guarding the Election Commission office to arrest him. Kirti Azad and Derek O’Brien tried unsuccessfully to cool tempers.

Hogging limelight

Appointing Rekha Gupta, a first-time MLA, as Chief Minister of Delhi has upset the established BJP hierarchy in the Capital and left some Delhi party stalwarts noticeably unhappy. Traditionally, Delhi MPs outrank the Chief Minister. But of late, they have been kept in the shade, with the media focusing on the dynamic Gupta, who keeps photojournalists on their toes with her schedule packed with cutting ribbons, attending functions and inaugurating schemes. For some Delhi BJP MPs, the last straw was Ambedkar Jayanti at the old Lok Sabha’s Central Hall, when Gupta was seen posing next to a portrait of B R Ambedkar in the company of Speaker Om Birla, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and BJP president J P Nadda. Surely, at least the Samvidhan Sadan should be the MPs’ territory and not the Chief Minister’s.

Star-crossed Ownership

Few are aware that Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister had promised to return South Court, the palatial villa on Malabar Hill built by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to his only daughter Dina Wadia, mother of industrialist Nusli Wadia. The building and its 2.5-acre compound lying derelict for decades is back in the news as the MEA is now planning to convert it into a diplomatic enclave. In 2001, the file was cleared by then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, with the Home Ministry, the Urban Development Ministry and the Department of Evacuee Property consenting to a long-term lease, provided the property was not exploited for commercial gain. Shortly afterwards, Yashwant Sinha became External Affairs Minister and his foreign secretary stymied the transfer.