Chennai: Former Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai Friday issued a clarification on a property that he had purchased in Coimbatore, after land registration documents went viral on social media, fuelling speculation about his finances.
In the clarification letter he has put up in the social media platform X, he said that the land he has purchased in Coimbatore was his “first immovable asset” and that all procedures were transparent. He also says he had used family savings and a bank loan to buy the property, and that he had paid Rs 40.59 lakh as stamp duty and registration fee.
“This is the first property we have purchased, and monthly loan interest has been serviced from my personal account,” he said in a statement, urging the public to dismiss “unnecessary speculation” over the purchase of the property.
He also said he had applied for a loan under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) to establish a dairy farm on the property.
Social media handles had alleged that Annamalai had purchased land in Coimbatore through questionable funds and tried to hide the transaction.
Annamalai’s clarification comes at a time when there is speculation that he is being sidelined by his party’s high command.
Once projected as the BJP’s vibrant face of Tamil Nadu, Annamalai was replaced in April 2025 as state president, a day after AIADMK struck a formal deal with the BJP to join the NDA alliance.
Although there was speculation that AIADMK leaders had suggested his removal as one of the preconditions to join the NDA, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had dismissed it. “Annamalai would be given an appropriate role at the national level,” Amit Shah said in a press meet in Tamil Nadu in April 2024.
However, that has not happened yet.
At the India Today media conclave held last week in Coimbatore, Annamalai said that while the BJP would prefer to contest alone in Tamil Nadu, ‘…the reality is that the BJP cannot form the government on its own in 2026”. He added that the alliance with AIADMK was a “pragmatic move”.
Stating that the immediate goal was to remove DMK from power, he asserted that AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami was the NDA’s chief ministerial candidate. “We are fully committed to the alliance with AIADMK. We will give our full effort to ensure EPS becomes the chief minister,” he said at the conclave.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: Retreat or strategic pause? Annamalai takes vow of silence on BJP-AIADMK alliance, for now
