The BJP on Thursday named its candidates for nine Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu, fielding former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan from Chennai South and party State unit chief K Annamalai from Coimbatore.  The party fielded former DMK leader and sitting MP TR Paarivendhar from Perambalur,  Union Minister L Murugan from  Nilgiris,   Former Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan will contest from Kanniyakumari, former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan will contest from Chennai South, K Annamalai from Coimbatore,  Vinoj P Selvam from Chennai Central, A C Shanmugam from Vellore, C Narasimhan from Krishnagiri, and Nainar Nagendran from Thoothukkudi.

Signalling a potential return to electoral politics, Tamilisai Soundararajan, the Governor of Telangana and Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) of Puducherry, tendered her resignation Monday.  The BJP is expecting to get few seats on the huge popualartity of its state unit president K Annamalai. The former IPS officer had however been resisting the high command’s plan to field him in the Lok Sabha elections by stating that his focus was on the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections.

The BJP,  sensing an opening, entrusted 36-year-old Annamalai to lead the state unit, springing a surprise as he had joined the party only a year ago. Annamalai, who was known for being a tough police officer, earning the tag “Singham Anna”, was a perfect fit for the BJP as it wanted a hands-on leader to make its foray into the Southern state. The BJP drew a blank in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

However, BJP’s ‘angry young man’ had humble beginnings and hails from an agricultural family in Thottampatti of Karur district. Annamalai belongs to the Gounder community, which has pockets of influence in the Kongu region of the state. Annamalai had done a benchmark survey in Pollachi and Coimbatore constituencies. The survey said that he would get 14% of the votes in Pollachi and 18% in Coimbatore.

Radhakrishnan has been a former minister in the Modi government and an ex-MP from Kanniyakumari. He will face a tough challenge in the constituency against Congress candidate Vijay Vasanth and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham’s (AIADMK) Nazerath Pasilian. The BJP also decided to give tickets to AC Shanmugam, the Puthiya Needhi Katchi (PNK) chief, from Vellore and also the sitting MP TR Paarivendhar from the Perambalur Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu on its symbol.

TR Paarivendhar is the leader of the Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK). Paarivendhar contested on MK Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham’s (DMK) symbol in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and won the constituency. He will take on AIADMK’s ND Chandramohan and DMK candidate Arun Nehru in the constituency.

Polling in the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats will be held in the first phase on April 19.  The BJP did not win a single seat from Tamil Nadu in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Ever since Annamalai took over as state BJP chief in 2021, he has been working aggressively to bring an electoral turnaround for his party in Tamil Nadu. The former IPS officer often became the talking point of political discourse in the state, though it remains to be seen if his party could get translated into votes, its work on the ground to garner support.

Especially, the western region of the state is under sustained focus of the BJP and it has fielded Annamalai from Coimbatore, the hub of the western belt. Presently, Coimbatore is represented by DMK ally CPI (M).

Annamalai will take on DMK’s Ganapathi P Rajkumar and AIADMK’s Singai G Ramachandran in what is being viewed as a battle of prestige.

Union Minister Murugan has all along been focusing on building the party in The Nilgiris and has been working to get support from various sections of people there. For at least a year now, it is an open secret that Murugan would be fielded by the BJP from Nilgiris to take on the incumbent MP, DMK heavyweight, A Raja. Tamilisai Soundararajan

Tamilisai, who unsuccessfully contested against Kanimozhi in Thoothukudi in 2019 LS polls, has been named as its candidate in south Chennai, where the BJP has pockets of influence.

Mild-mannered, Tamilisai, is popular among people. She had resigned as Governor of Telangana on March 18. Pon Radhakrishnan

A former union minister, he was the BJP’s lone winning candidate from Tamil Nadu in 2014 as the state overwhelmingly voted for the J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK, which won 37 of the 39 seats that year.

The saffron party had put up a spectacular show that year, winning 282 seats.