While there were about dozens of candidates on the track who were sprinting to win the race for the post of Tamil Nadu BJP President, the Central ruling party has picked the candidate whose name was neither discussed before nor came to the fray of the possible leaders what the Tamil Nadu unit had. 

Nearly six months after having the post of Tamil Nadu BJP chief vacant, BJP National President has on Wednesday announced L Murugan as the next president of the Tamil Nadu unit and the surprise pick has come at the high time to lead the party in the legislative elections in the state where it has weakening base. His name was ticked by Delhi amid the serious speculations.

Some of the leaders including H Raja, CP Radhakrishnan, Vanathi Srinivasan, Nainar Nagendran, Pon Radhakrishnan, KT Raghavan, and Karuppu Muruganandham were vying to take the seat of party's president that was vacated by Tamilisai Soundarajan. In September 2019, Tamilisai Soundarajan had vacated the post after she was elevated as the Governor of Telangana and these the senior leaders had lobbied to captain the ship that has been submerging in Tamil Nadu.

The post of the Tamil Nadu party president hadn't seen much competition and a heavy race earlier. After Narendra Modi had formed his government at the Center for the second consecutive term and since the BJP observes alliance with the Tamil Nadu ruling ADMK party, the state's top post has attained importance and became one of the notable roles in the state politics that has now let senior leaders lobby with Delhi to grab the post.

When we reached out to the sources in BJP to learn the reason why Delhi picked L Murugan as a successor of Tamilisai, they say that several leaders eyed to the post of the president and the BJP Central leadership has held discussions to pick the president. The central leadership had 12 candidates on its fray and party's national president JP Nadda conducted a series of inquires about each candidate and in return, he got unique complaints behind each one of them and the intelligence had notified Delhi that if the party names whoever in the list of 12, it would erupt the conflicts of opinions within the party.

Adding to that, the sources have stated that the Central ruling party wished to break the image levied on it that the party is for upper-class people and against Dalits and with the view of erasing the image, the party had announced L Murugan as the Chief for Tamil Nadu unit and he has also been observing close ties with JP Nadda. L Murugan has been serving as the vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC). Before taking up the role in the National Commission, Murugan was practicing as an advocate in the Madras High Court and as the vice-chairman, he was hearing the Panchami land case that was related to DMK's mouthpiece Murasoli. He would be Tamil Nadu BJP President for the next three years.

Also read: BJP has named a new president for Tamil Nadu unit - Here's the latest update!