Tamil Nadu BJP chief Annamalai seeks three-month sabbatical to pursue UK fellowship

Chennai: Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai is believed to have requested the Central leadership to relieve him of his responsibilities for at least three months to enable him to pursue a fellowship on leadership in London offered by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office.

Annamalai’s plea has put the High Command in a quandary as it has invested huge political capital in the former Karnataka cadre IPS officer over the past four years, especially during his three-year tenure as the state unit president. The party’s leadership in New Delhi is now mulling options -- maintaining the status quo or appointing an interim team that could run the party in his absence.

Highly-placed sources in the BJP told DH that the 40-year-old IPS officer-turned-politician has conveyed to the Central leadership that he is keen on taking a sabbatical to attend the fellowship in Britain and was unwilling to reconsider his decision.

“He has already booked his tickets to London in September. He is unequivocal he needs a break from active politics for a few months for the fellowship. But the question is who will handle party affairs when he is not in the country,” a source in the know told DH. Annamalai has been selected for the Chevening Gurukul Fellowship for Leadership and Excellence programme, which runs between September and November.

The source added that a call on this issue will have to be taken only by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the duo handpicked Annamalai to head the state unit in July 2021 and have made numerous trips to Tamil Nadu since then.

Annamalai, whose outspoken nature and confrontational attitude made him a polarising figure in Tamil Nadu, is touted as the BJP’s future in the southern state, where the party’s innumerable strategies have failed to strike a chord with the masses. He stitched together an alliance sans Dravidian majors, despite criticism from his party, for the Lok Sabha polls which saw the BJP drawing a blank, but posting an impressive 11.5 per cent vote share.

The High Command has only two options, the sources told DH, which is maintaining the status quo by allowing Annamalai to travel to the UK or asking “someone senior” to take control of the party in the interim.

Even as the Central leadership ponders over the issue, a section within the state BJP is pushing for a new interim leader who is “less aggressive” and “more amenable” towards party functionaries and alliance partners.

Annamalai had applied for the fellowship earlier this year and had attended an interview in this regard in New Delhi in May. Annamalai applied for the fellowship as the founder of the ‘We The Leaders’ foundation, an NGO he launched in 2019 after he sought voluntary retirement from the Indian Police Service.

Annamalai, though mocked for his seemingly taller claims of BJP crossing a 20 per cent vote share in the 2024 polls, brought the party into the spotlight through relentless engagement. He contested two elections since entering politics and lost both. His first candidature was from Aravakurichi, in 2021, to the state assembly.

Annamalai’s rise in the BJP has been meteoric after he joined the party in August 2020. Within a year, the blue-eyed boy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was made the state unit chief and was given a free hand in running the party.

In the largely bipolar state of Tamil Nadu, Annamalai, though mocked for his seemingly taller claims of BJP crossing a 20 per cent vote share in the 2024 polls, brought the party into the spotlight through relentless engagement.