TWO EX-BUREAUCRATS SET TO MAKE ELECTORAL DEBUT IN TAMIL NADU

Two former officers of the Karnataka cadre — one Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sasikanth Senthil and another Indian Police Service (IPS) officer K Annamalai — who resigned from service in 2019 to join ideologically opposite Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are set to make their electoral debut in the Lok Sabha elections from their native state of Tamil Nadu.

The two officers served in different parts of Karnataka for a decade with Annamalai being two years junior (2011 batch) to Senthil (2009 batch) before taking the political plunge expressing displeasure with the bureaucracy.

The Congress is the main ally of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu forming key constituencies of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. Senthil resigned as deputy commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district in September 2019 saying that the country’s values were being compromised and joined the Congress in Tamil Nadu the following month. Speaking to HT at that time, he said that he is joining the Congress, which he views as a forerunner of a larger people’s movement in fighting against the “hate politics of the BJP” across the country. Senthil actively took part in the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and National Register of Citizen (NRC) movements.

Senthil, 45, is known to be Rahul Gandhi’s choice for Tamil Nadu after his work in the war room for Karnataka’s 2023 assembly elections was successful in Congress forming the government. He was also tasked with the Rajasthan assembly elections last year which the BJP won. He has been made the head of election war room in Delhi for the Lok Sabha elections which he would focus on after Tamil Nadu votes on April 19 in the first phase.

“This election is not just important for the Congress but also for democracy,” Senthil said after being named the candidate for the Thiruvallur (SC reserved) constituency on March 24. “Nobody takes the BJP’s statements ‘seriously’ that they will win all 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry. Their (winning) will never be true not just today but in any birth,” he added. He will face AIADMK’s ally DMDK’s K Nallathambi and BJP’s Pon V Balaganapathy.

Senthil was not reachable, while Annamalai refused to comment until the time of filing the report.

While Senthil is considered as “soft spoken”, Annamalai, 39, who earned the moniker “Singham” (lion) during his stint in Karnataka as a police officer is fierier in his speeches. While Senthil was born in Chennai, Annamalai hails from Tamil Nadu’s western region in Karur and he will contest from one of its constituents in the high-profile Coimbatore seat. DMK is contesting in Coimbatore after 10 years by fielding a former AIADMK mayor, Ganapathy P Rajkumar. Any direct candidate from DMK has not won the seat since 1996. However, its allies managed to register a victory on the seat. The region is AIADMK’s fortress which left the BJP alliance last September solely blaming Annamalai who called Dravidian stalwarts such as J Jayalalithaa corrupt. AIADMK has fielded Singai Ramachandan as its candidate from the seat.

Annamalai, who had quit the force in Karnataka in May 2019, had joined the BJP in Tamil Nadu in August 2020 as the vice-president of the party’s state unit. Following the 2021 assembly elections which the DMK won, Annamalai was made the head of the party in the state. He is considered to be close with senior party leaders including Union home minister Amit Shah, who inaugurated his ‘En Man, En Makkal’ padyatra last year covering Tamil Nadu’s 234 assembly constituencies which culminated after six months this February in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Annamalai has got under the skin of DMK and AIADMK leaders alike in a way that no other state BJP leader has with corruption and dynastic politics as his and the national parties primary poll plank against the Dravidian majors. So far the appeal of Modi and BJP has not found favour in Tamil Nadu but opinion polls show that their vote share will go up from 3.67% in 2019 to double digits. “I just have one question, how many times have you seen the current Coimbatore MP?” Annamalai had asked rhetorically while campaigning in Tirupur’s Palladam on Tuesday. “But from attending weddings to walking to your homes in the yatra you have seen me almost every other day. As an elected representative you will see more of me. I don’t take leave from politics because change doesn’t happen now. It will never happen.”

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2024-03-28T01:46:30Z dg43tfdfdgfd