3 min readChennaiApr 3, 2026 03:41 PM IST
First published on: Apr 3, 2026 at 03:41 PM IST
The BJP on Friday announced its full list of 27 candidates for the Tamil Nadu Assembly election, but the absence of its former state president, K Annamalai, the party’s most visible face in the state, has become the defining feature of the line-up.
Senior leaders, including L Murugan, a Union Minister, will contest from Avinashi (SC), while Tamilisai Soundararajan, former Telangana Governor, has been fielded from Mylapore – the party’s only seat in Chennai.
The party’s state chief, Nainar Nagenthran, is contesting from Sattur. Vanathi Srinivasan, the BJP Mahila Morcha national president, will contest from Coimbatore (North), a key industrial belt seat and the only seat for the BJP in their stronghold, the Coimbatore city region.
Other candidates include Kirthika Shivkumar from Modakkurichi, a former Congress MLA who joined the BJP, S Vijayadharani from Vilavancode, and Nagesh Kumar from Thalli.
While the list reflects an attempt to balance recognisable faces with organisational candidates across regions, the focus has been on who is missing. Annamalai, who had earlier indicated he would not contest, was actively persuaded by sections of the party’s central leadership to reconsider, according to senior BJP sources.
“There were multiple rounds of discussions. The leadership wanted him in the fray,” one senior leader said. However, sources close to Annamalai said his decision was shaped by the final seat allocation within the AIADMK-led NDA.
“If there had been at least one more seat in Coimbatore, he would have considered contesting,” a person familiar with the discussions said.
That constraint traces back to the seat-sharing negotiations led by AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami, who retained tight control over constituency allocation. Despite requests, constituencies such as Singanallur – informally seen as a possible seat for Annamalai – along with Sulur and Gowndanpalayam, were not allotted to the BJP. The party eventually secured only one seat each in Chennai and Coimbatore.
Party insiders said that uncertainty over Annamalai’s candidature contributed to a delay in finalising the list. “The leadership kept a window open for him till the last moment,” a BJP functionary said. The broader distribution reflects the BJP’s limited but expanding footprint. The party, which contested 20 seats in 2021 and won four, has increased its tally to 27 under the NDA arrangement. Yet, as leaders privately concede, the spread of constituencies – rather than the number – shaped internal expectations.
There were also indications that the BJP’s central leadership chose not to push aggressively during seat-sharing talks, unlike the negotiations that helped revive the alliance with the AIADMK last year. “The priority was to keep the alliance intact,” a senior leader said, pointing to the party’s longer-term calculations. “2029 is crucial for us. The AIADMK in Tamil Nadu cannot be approached without a strong regional partner. So the leadership felt that it may not be wise to force the AIADMK chief over individual demands,” he said.
Annamalai, in a public message, endorsed the candidates and said he would campaign for the NDA “as a karyakarta,” framing his decision as organisational rather than personal.
