Union Home Minister Amit Shah will on July 28 kick-off from the temple town of Rameswaram a state-wide padayatra to be undertaken by Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai, as the party makes a concerted push to reverse the 2019 Lok Sabha poll drubbing in next year’s general elections.
Named ‘En Mann, En Makkal’ (My Land, My People), the padayatra will take Annamalai and his party colleagues to all 234 assembly constituencies in the state in the next few months before culminating in Chennai, the state capital. The yatra, which was scheduled to begin in April coinciding with the Tamil New Year, was postponed after the BJP sent Annamalai to oversee elections in Karnataka.
“The yatra will be launched by Amit Shah on July 28 from Rameswaram,” a source in the know told DH. This will be the second time Shah will be in Tamil Nadu in as many months, signifying the importance that the party is attaching to the state which sends 39 MPs to Lok Sabha.
The main focus of the yatra, party leaders told DH, is to reach all constituencies ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and tell people about the Narendra Modi government’s achievements since 2014.
“We will also expose the corruption of DMK during the yatra. Our goal is to tell the people that the DMK and other parties’ projection of the BJP as a party that is anti-Tamil is wrong. During the yatra, the state President also plans to release more files exposing the DMK government,” a senior leader said on the condition of anonymity.
The yatra also comes at a time the state unit of BJP is involved in a bitter war of words with senior ally AIADMK, which has taken objection more than once to Annamalai’s utterances on alliance dharma and corruption among Dravidian parties. Annamalai’s indirect reference to Jayalalithaa’s conviction in a disproportionate assets (DA) case prompted the AIADMK to pass a resolution against him in the district secretaries’ meeting.
Though the BJP has maintained that the alliance with AIADMK will continue, it has refrained from publicly reprimanding Annamalai or distancing itself from his statements. At a public meeting in Vellore last month, Shah in fact lavished praise on Annamalai saying he has taken the party flag and name to every village in the state.
Political observers said the padayatra will be keenly watched as Annamalai has already said that he will not stop talking about the corruption of DMK alone but every party that has governed the state since 1967 bringing the AIADMK also under the radar.
If Annamalai makes adverse remarks against the AIADMK in the run-up to the elections, it might make things tough for the alliance which will take on the DMK-Congress alliance which has tasted success in two consecutive elections and in civic polls.
BJP leaders said the party launching the yatra from Rameswaram, a temple town that attracts lakhs of Hindu pilgrims, is also significant since it is home to a sizable number of fishermen, whom the BJP is trying to woo.
“We have been reaching out to the fishermen community through a slew of initiatives and by taking steps to reduce incidents of fishermen being arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy. Since Rameswaram is the hub of fishing activity in South TN, we believe launching the padayatra from there will send several signals,” another leader told DH.
The first leader added that the party’s main goal is to prove that Tamil Nadu isn’t anti-BJP and prove that the 2019 results which saw the AIADMK-BJP alliance winning just one seat was an aberration.