K Annamalai, who quit the IPS to join politics, was made the Tamil Nadu state unit president in July.
Chennai:
Nearly a month after taking over as Tamil Nadu BJP president, former IPS officer Annamalai is facing trouble amid a tussle with the party. Tension has arisen after an audio tape surfaced earlier this week in which Mr. Annamalai is purportedly heard giving a green signal to the release of a sting video that put a senior leader in the dock. Which has embarrassed the party.
“The call is yours. How would you like to do it? If you publish (videos) I’ll get them all out in an hour or two. If you don’t publish it’s a big headache for me. Me all It has to be shown, explained to everyone and every month two have to be taken out. Hope you understand,” he can be heard purportedly saying in the video. NDTV could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio tapes.
The conversation pertains to an alleged obscene video call of a senior state BJP leader with a woman party worker.
Tamil Nadu BJP general secretary and a senior RSS leader KT Raghavan had resigned from his post a few days ago, hours after footage of his alleged obscene video call with the woman went viral.
Mr Raghavan has denied the allegations and called the sting operation an “attempt to tarnish” him and the party.
The video was released by YouTuber Madan Ravichandran, who has now been expelled from the BJP along with his colleague MS Venba. Mr. Ravichandran has alleged that he has evidence of sexual abuse against 15 leaders of the state BJP unit.
Mr. Ravichandran says in his video, “We have audio and video evidence against 15 leaders. Why did we release him (KT Raghavan) earlier, because he always presented himself as Mr. Clean.”
The expelled BJP YouTuber claims that he only wanted an internal probe, but released the sting video only after Annamalai’s consent.
Reacting to the controversy, party leader Khushboo Sundar said on Twitter that “the matter should be investigated”.
Have you seen any woman from the party complaining of misbehavior? We stand with every woman who is subject to sexual harassment, party or not. We stand with women to empower them. And I’m surprised you didn’t read where I said “the matter should be investigated” https://t.co/6zc5kjXGiw
— KhushbuSundar (@happysundar) 26 August 2021
The state BJP chief has confirmed that he had met journalists. He has also ordered an inquiry. Another leader, on the condition of anonymity, said, “I don’t think there is any tug of war between the leaders. Let’s wait for the investigation. I don’t fault Annamalai, even the voice in the sting audio.” is theirs.” .
K Annamalai, who quit the IPS to join politics, was made the Tamil Nadu state unit president in July.
Annamalai Kuppusamy, 37, is the youngest ever president of the Tamil Nadu BJP and the first person to be ranked in the state unit within a year of joining the party.
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