Faction wars erupt in Tamil Nadu BJP

Chennai: The BJP, which is trying to make a mark in the Dravidian heartland of Tamil Nadu after winning four Assembly seats and rewarding the then party state president, L. Murugan with a Minister of State post in the Modi cabinet, is now facing a factional war.

The issue which was boiling inside against the 'authoritarian' functioning of IPS officer-turned-politician, K. Annamalai, has now surfaced after the party's woman leader Gayatri Raghuram was suspended for six months by the president. Gayatri Raghuram had supported the party minority morcha leader Daisy Sarin, who was verbally abused by another leader, Shiva Surya, an OBC leader and son of Tiruchi Shiva a senior DMK leader and Member of Parliament.

The issue erupted when the verbal abuse of Shiva Surya on Daisy Sarin was leaked on social media and went viral leading to Gayatri Raghuram extending support to Daisy Sarin. She took to social media platform, Twitter, and had a spat on the issue with the party industrial cell convenor, A. Selvakumar. She claimed that it was Selvakumar who was behind the trolls against her. Soon after the party Chief for Tamil Nadu, K. Annamalai on November 22 issued a statement suspending her from party activities for six months. He also suspended Shiva Surya, the OBC head from participating in party events and later suspended him also.

The issue of suspending two lightweight leaders is seen as superficial, there is more to it than meets the eye. After Annamalai assumed office as the state president of the party, he has been a tough task master and the old style of armed chair politics in the BJP was not allowed.

This made him several enemies and senior leaders of the party are trying to fan up unrest against him as the generational shift to a young leader was not accepted by the old gen leaders in Tamil Nadu.

Annamalai has always flaunted his contacts in Delhi -- read Modi, Shah -- and with such a profile, the local leaders were not in a position to directly attack him. However developments at the middle level with leaders like Gayatri Raghuram and A. Selvakumar taking on each other on social media and a leader like Shiva Surya, who is a new entrant to the party attacking the woman minority morcha leader, Daisy Charan are more deep rather than what is being seen in the exterior.

Dr. G. Padmanabhan, Director, Socio Economic Development Foundation, think tank based out of Madurai and studying BJP politics of South India while speaking to IANS said: "There is a lobby led by a few Brahmin leaders in the Sangh Parivar which is not in good terms with Annamalai. Ever since his advent in the BJP, these leaders were quite unhappy with him and this has led to friction at many places.

"Also the style of functioning of Annamalai is like what he is trained for, a police officer and this has not gone down well with the senior leaders who have over the years toiled at the grassroots to keep the ship floating the murky waters of Tamil Nadu politics dominated totally by Dravidian ideology and Dravidian politics." Padmanabhan added: "Naturally these leaders will not accept such a generational shift and this is being reflected in the exterior now rather than the issues between small leaders of the party."