Nainar Nagendran To Replace Annamalai As New TN BJP President As Tirunelveli MLA Files Nomination

Naina Nagendran will be reportedly replacing K Annamalai as the Tamil Nadu BJP President, reports in the Tamil media claim.

The Tirunelveli MLA, who is also the Legislative Party Leader of the BJP, has filed his nomination for the post of at the party's headquarters, Kamalalayam, on Friday. The BJP will officially announce the name at the party's headquarters in Delhi on Saturday.

Outgoing president K Annamalai, Union Minister of State L Murugan, and other BJP leaders including Pon Radhakrishnan and Vanathi Srinivasan were also present.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to make a formal announcement in this regard on Friday.

However, Union Minister L Murugan, Coimbatore South MLA Vanathi Srinivasan, senior leader H Raja and former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan were reportedly in the race. In the end, the Nagendran had the backing of the central and state leaders.

The decision to replace K Annamalai, who is credited for reenergising the Tamil Nadu unit despite internal fights, was taken after AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami met the BJP leaders including Amit Shah in New Delhi, two weeks ago.

The AIADMK and the BJP are in talks for an alliance ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls in 2026. During the meeting, the AIADMK chief had reportedly laid a condition to the BJP to remove Annamalai as the Tamil Nadu BJP chief.

The AIADMK, which had ties with the BJP in 2019, broke the alliance, blaming Annamalai, whose comments on former Tamil Nadu CMs J Jayalalithaa and Annadurai had not gone well with the Dravidian major.

The decision on the party's next state BJP president was taken after the consultation with the local leaders. Nainar had the backing of several leaders including K Annamalai.

The BJP, which has negligible presence in Tamil Nadu, has been trying to leave a strong footprint in the land where politics is dominated by the Dravidian parties. Under Annamalai's leadership the party virtually went solo in the last Lok Sabha polls and drew blank.

However, the BJP, for the first time, crossed double digit vote share without having an alliance with major Dravidian parties.