Tamil Nadu BJP president Annamalai has gone red on Tuesday - January 9 after a group of protesters blocked him from garlanding a Mary idol in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri district. The incident has happened when his statewide campaign 'En Mann, En Makkal' (My land, my people) reached the district. When he decided to pay respect to the idol, the protesters raised slogans 'BJP get out'. 

Annamalai visited the popular 'Our Lady of Lourdes' Shrine on Tuesday and attempted to garland Mary idol in the shrine with a claim of expressing solidarity with Christians killed in the ongoing violence between two polarized communities in Manipur. However, Annamalai's move was deterred by the locals in Dharmapuri's Pappireddipatti and they went on to condemn the Modi regime over its flawed approach in handling the violence. 

The protesters told Annamalai that the shrine was a holy land and that Christians like them were being targeted and killed in Manipur. The visuals from the ground had shown heated exchanges between the protesters and the BJP cadres. A protester urged Annamalai not to garland Mary idol while another protester remarked, "Christians like us are being killed in Manipur, you cannot lay your garland here. They killed our people, they destroyed the churches."

Pointing at Annamalai in a fashion of accusing BJP of suppressing the minorities, the protesters asked 'Why did you kill our Christian people?'. Responding to the protesters, Annamalai argued that it is not an issue about Christians in Manipur and that it is between two tribal communities. By stating that one community is conflicting against the another one for getting Scheduled Tribes status, Annamalai claimed that both communities have Hindus and Christians and that the people must understand who is playing politics with religion. 

When the protesters continued to fight against Annamalai and the BJP, Annamalai went on to ask them 'not to be like a DMK functionary', only to witness a fresh wave of fury against him. According to the News Minute, while the protesters argued that they don't belong to DMK, Annamalai said, "Everyone has the right to come here. What right do you have to stop me? Is the church in your name? What will you do if I bring 10,000 people here to hold dharna?". Annamalai had, eventually, amidst police protection, garlanded the Mary idol.