Former IPS officer K Annamalai officially joined the BJP on Monday. He participated in a ceremony organised by BJP in New Delhi, in the presence of BJP National General Secretary P Muralidhar Rao and TN BJP State President L Murugan. Calling himself a ‘loyal foot soldier in the party’, Annamalai said that he will work towards strengthening the BJP’s cause in Tamil Nadu.
Opening his post-induction speech with a Thirukkural, Annamalai said that the kural speaks about the four qualities a king or an administrator should have. “It talks about fearlessness, it talks about courage, it talks about giving spirit, it talks about knowledge. I see all four of this with our honourable Shri Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji and all eminent leaders of BJP Party,” he said. Adding that he has decided that he should strengthen the movement, Annamalai said that he will work towards bringing the ‘nationalist spirit to Tamil Nadu’. His decision to join BJP comes after he had told the media that his motivation to quit the police force was to work at the grassroots level in agriculture and education sectors in his native place.
The former IPS officer had quit the service in May 2019. After his resignation from the police force, he said that he considered various options in politics that were suitable for him to pursue and finally decided to join the BJP as his first step in electoral politics. There were rumours that he was in talks with those close to Rajinikanth about joining the actor's party, when it launches. Now that he has formally joined the BJP, he is expected to work in Chennai or Coimbatore for the party ahead of the Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu in 2021.
In his various interviews with news channels in the recent past, Annamalai has been clear about his admiration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, according to him, rose to the position of the Prime Minister from the grassroots in the party. Annamalai has also been vocal against nepotism in politics and said that he did not consider joining the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu. “I also felt that the Dravidian parties are not true to their original mission of bringing about change. The ideals of Annadurai, Periyar and MGR were different from the ideals of today’s leaders,” he told TNM earlier.
A native of Karur district in western Tamil Nadu, Annamalai is a 2011-batch IPS officer who started his career in the police force as the assistant superintendent of police in Karkala, Udupi district, Karnataka. He was then promoted to be the SP of Udupi district in 2015. He was known for cracking down on criminal activities in the district and was given the moniker ‘Singam’ of Udupi. He was transferred out of Udupi in 2016 and was posted as the SP of Chikkamagaluru district.