Coimbatore: As the BJP fell short of the majority mark in the Lok Sabha election 2024 results, the saffron party faced an embarassment in Tamil Nadu where the firebrand state party president K Annamalai was defeated by DMK's Ganapathy Rajkumar P by over one lakh votes.
According to the ECI data, Rajkumar secured 568200 votes winning against Annamalai, who got 450132 votes, by a margin of 118068.
Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat witnessed a high-stakes battle in the first phase of the general elections on April 19, with Annamalai facing Ganapathy P Rajkumar and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran. The BJP was banking on Annamalai, while the DMK reclaimed the seat from its ally CPIM to field P Rajkumar.
Jharkhand Governor CP Radhakrishnan, who was the BJP candidate from Coimbatore in the past two Lok Sabha elections of 2019 and 2014, had suffered back-to-back defeats.
CPI (M) MP PR Natarajan defeated CP Radhakrishnan with a victory margin of 1,79,143 votes. The vote share of CP Radhakrishnan was 31.3 per cent. PR Natarajan got a 45.7 per cent vote share of the total polled votes. In 2014, CP Radhakrishnan lost the election to AIADMK's P Nagarajan with a margin of 42,016 votes. Annamalai released the manifesto for the Coimbatore constituency for the Lok Sabha elections on Friday.
During his election campaign, Annamalai promised establishment of the Indian Institute of Management, the offices of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Coimbatore city.
The BJP had also announced the introduction of round-the-clock mobile food vans named after the legendary leader and former Chief Minister, K Kamaraj. As for DMK, it bet on a string of its welfare schemes including fare-free travel for women in buses.
It battled some anti-incumbency like discontent among MSMEs over high cost of electricity despite Stalin’s measures to address their grievances. Leader of Opposition and AIADMK chief, Edappadi K Palaniswami asserted the fight was only between his party and the DMK. The BJP, however, worked hard too, to give the well entrenched Dravidian parties a run for their money.
Conceding defeat in a post on X, Annamalai wrote, "I bow down to the people of the Coimbatore Parliamentary constituency & thank the 4.5 Lakh voters who bestowed their faith in NDA & BJP Tamil Nadu. You believed in the vision of our Hon PM Shri Prime Minister Narendra Modi avl for his Viksit Bharat. You have given us historic votes in the history of Coimbatore PC for NDA, and still, we were short of the winning mark. I congratulate & convey my best wishes to the winning DMK candidate of Coimbatore, Thiru Raj Kumar avl. I take this opportunity also to wish the candidates from other political parties & the independent candidates who participated in the race to win the people’s mandate to be Coimbatore PC’s Member of Parliament. Finally, I assure the loving people of Kovai that we will double our efforts to win your love & mandate in the future!"
From cop to politician: Annamalai’s journey to being Modi’s confidante
K Annamalai, IPS -turned politician, contested the Aravakurichi Assembly constituency of Karur district in the last assembly election held in 2021 and lost.
As an IPS officer, Annamalai served in important roles across Karnataka, notably as Superintendent of Police of Udupi and Chikmagalur districts and later as Deputy Commissioner of Police Bangalore South.
In 2019, he resigned from his post as Deputy Commissioner of Police in Annamalai South Bangalore. He joined the BJP on 25 August 2020 and was later appointed as the vice president of the Tamil Nadu state BJP. After that, he was appointed as the state president within a few months. Annamalai then contested the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections on behalf of the BJP from Aravakurichi.
