Senior Tamil Nadu BJP leader quits party, joins AIADMK

Chennai:

BJP’s Tamil Nadu IT wing chief CTR Nirmal Kumar on Sunday lashed out at the party’s state president K Annamalai and left the party.

Within hours of announcing his resignation, he met AIADMK interim chief K Palaniswami and joined the main opposition party. In a statement uploaded on his Twitter account, Mr Kumar accused the party’s state leadership of neglecting party workers and even accused Annamalai of conducting “surveillance” against several people, The allegation was dismissed by a close aide of the leader.

Mr. Kumar, a party worker based in Madurai, said, “There is nothing more humiliating than rejoicing over the surveillance of one’s own party members and office-bearers.”

He alleged that the BJP was not even 20 per cent as compared to 2019 before Annamalai came to power. Later, he met Palaniswami and joined the AIADMK, the party said.

Responding to Mr. Kumar’s allegation, Amar Prasad Reddy, a close aide of Annamalai, dismissed the charge of “surveillance” as “baseless”. Reddy, president of Tamil Nadu BJP’s sports and skill development cell, told PTI, “It is 100 per cent false allegation.”

He said that the Annamalai party was keen to infuse young blood and as a result about 60 per cent posts were held by people below the age of 30 years.

He said the state BJP leader had “least care” to know about the personal and professional lives of party office-bearers and that Annamalai had given Kumar a lot of importance in the past few months.

He said the BJP was “moving fast to where the party would expect everyone to give 100 per cent”. Sometimes, some people may not be able to give, Mr Reddy said.

Reddy said new blood will be infused into the party and it will grow in the days to come, was Annamalai’s message, as the leader wished Kumar all the best for his new innings in the Dravidian party.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)