"The political candidate who understands TV — whatever his party, goals, or beliefs — can gain power unknown in history,” said media theorist Marshall McLuhan in 1969.
It’s unclear whether K Annamalai, the 40-year-old Tamil Nadu BJP president once trolled for claiming to have devoured 20,000 books, has studied McLuhan.
However, he seems to have imbibed this idea perfectly, as he dominates the news cycle yet again by keeping speculation alive about his continuation as state president.
Political observers may debate the BJP’s empirical growth in Tamil Nadu since Annamalai joined the party in August 2020 and became its state president 10 months later. But many cadres and supporters felt they finally got a ‘leader’, and not just a ‘state president’, as a senior party leader put it. With tireless engagement with the media, he often sidelined the AIADMK, which ruled the state for three decades, positioning the BJP as the DMK’s chief rival.
The 'larger-than-life' image he cultivated was evident during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when media from north India descended en masse on Coimbatore, his constituency. Though he lost to the DMK, Annamalai relegated the AIADMK to a distant third in the constituency, once considered its stronghold.
That he had to contest against the AIADMK instead of the two fighting the DMK together was his own doing; at least that is what AIADMK stated while exiting the BJP-led NDA in September 2023. Now, signals of a patch-up for the 2026 Assembly elections have thrust Annamalai back into focus following AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami’s March 25 meeting with Amit Shah.
Since March 2023, Annamalai has expressed unease about allying with the AIADMK, calling it detrimental to the BJP’s long-term interests. One plus one is never two in electoral arithmetic, but one cannot deny that the DMK-led alliance’s victory was cemented by the BJP-AIADMK split. In theory, Annamalai could have won Coimbatore as their combined vote share was higher than that of DMK’s. This was true in 12 other constituencies. While the BJP improved its vote share and pushed the AIADMK-led alliance to third place in 12 seats, it was a “historic” rout for the AIADMK as it lost deposit in seven constituencies, a first for the party. This explains AIADMK’s willingness to risk alienating minorities as another electoral defeat could prove catastrophic for the party and especially EPS. A five-cornered 2026 contest with actor Vijay’s TVK and Seeman’s NTK in the fray might hand the DMK-led alliance a clean sweep.
Annamalai seems to acknowledge the alliance’s inevitability as he has since stressed that “ousting the DMK” and “Tamil Nadu’s welfare” outweigh party interests. Yet he appears reluctant to lead the party in such an alliance since he also told the media that he entered politics not for power but to “clean up Tamil Nadu’s politics” and “fight corruption”.
His three-year presidential term technically ended in 2024, but the BJP deferred organisational polls in many states. Though the party constitution permits a second term, Annamalai stepping down as state president, ostensibly due to his “principled opposition” to the alliance, can put BJP in a sticky spot. After all, how could he campaign for an alliance that he is fundamentally opposed to?
On Friday, when asked directly if he is in the race for state president, Annamalai replied to the media, “I am not.” Some media outlets declared this as his resignation. However, he also remarked with a smile during the same interaction that he is not in the “race” because there is no such competition in the BJP since matters are decided unanimously.
The coming week will provide clarity on his future.Should he step down, he might benefit from another McLuhan statement on how Richard Nixon benefitted from changing a “hot, sharply-defined image and action (on the TV)” to an “earnest, modest, quietly sincere — in a word, cool” image. Or Annamalai may have the last laugh having controlled the narrative and creating a frenzy among supporters and media while knowing all along he is likely to stay president.
