A SINGHAM IN SAFFRON

FORMER IPS OFFICER ANNAMALAI IS ON A MISSION TO MAKE THE BJP THE PRIME CHALLENGER IN TAMIL NADU. THE BATTLE FOR THE COIMBATORE LOK SABHA SEAT IS SETTING THE TEMPLATE 

- RAJ CHENGAPPA

FORMER INDIAN POדין LICE SERVICE officer Kuppuswamy Annamalai is just four years into his avatar as a politician but is already looking like a pro. At Palladam, on the outskirts of Coimbatore, the Lok Sabha constituency he is contesting from, bursting crackers and the beating of drums greet the arrival of his saffron mini-bus. Dressed in a white dhoti-kurta and sporting a craggy beard and hair, Annamalai steps on the hydraulic lift pedestal that enables him to pop up from the roof of the bus. Outside, party workers wave Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) flags furiously while cutouts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi beam down from the poles that line the road.

Everything is carefully choreographed. Songs praising Modi's achievements and his vision for India blare out in Tamil as an ecstatic supporter thrusts a goat kid into the leader's arms for him to bless. Annamalai then picks up a microphone and talks to the crowd for some five minutes, exhorting them to vote for Modi and the BJP for "development". He never forgets to denounce the "dynastic trends and corruption" of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners. A little later, he stops at the house of a Dalit family to have lunch, which is served on a plantain leaf placed on the floor just the right touch to assert his own rustic origins and belief in the equality of castes.