Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nainar Nagenthiran filed his nomination for the President of the saffron party’s unit in Tamil Nadu on Friday, April 11. Nagenthiran, a BJP MLA, was accompanied by several prominent party leaders, including current state president K Annamalai.
So far, Nagenthiran, whose second name is also spelt as Nagendran, is the only candidate to have filed his nomination for the post in the saffron party ahead of next year’s Tamil Nadu assembly elections. The official announcement of his appointment as state unit president will be made on Saturday.
The development comes on the day Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Tamil Nadu formally announced the BJP’s alliance with AIADMK. Shah said AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) will head the alliance.
The outgoing BJP chief in Tamil Nadu Annamalai had publicly said he is “not in the contest for the new state chief” and would continue to serve as “an ordinary cadre”. Annamalai’s exit is seen as a calculated move to recalibrate the party’s leadership profile in the state, particularly in view of the alliance with the AIADMK.
Who is Nainar Nagenthiran?
Nagendran, currently the state vice president of BJP, was earlier with the AIADMK. He joined the BJP in 2017. His name was proposed by Annamalai, Union Minister L Murugan, former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan, among others
Nagendran served as the transport minister of Tamil Nadu from 19 May 2001 to 12 May 2006. He has been the vice president of the BJP in Tamil Nadu since 3 July 2020.
Nagendran won the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections from the Tirunelveli constituency in 2006 and 2011 as an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) candidate. In 2021, however, he won as a BJP candidate.
AIADMK turncoat
After Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016, Nagenthiran was among many AIADMK leaders who joined the BJP in August 2017.
Nagendran has been a favourite of the BJP top brass in Delhi for quite some time. In the 2021 assembly election, Union Home Minister Amit Shah campaigned for him. Nagendran won from the Tirunelveli constituency for the third time in 2021, defeating the DMK candidate by a margin of 23,107 votes.
The BJP has only four MLAs in the Tamil Nadu assembly, with Nagendran the most senior. He is known for maintaining a relatively low profile and a non-confrontational public image.
Nagendran, a prominent Thevar community leader from Tirunelveli is also the BJP’s legislative party leader in the state.
“The BJP wants to consolidate its hold beyond western Tamil Nadu. Bringing in a Thevar leader like Nagendran could help expand its influence in the southern districts and beyond, where the AIADMK-BJP alliance will need to counter the DMK’s stronghold,” a leader was quoted as saying by the Indian Express in an earlier report.
