For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he inches closer to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he must be closer to achieving the BJP's objective of saffronizing the states that aren't the party's citadel. The crucial states that put his aim under test include West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The stronghold of the anti-BJP mantra in these states was evident in the recently-held assembly polls. 

With the objective of winning Tamil Nadu, Modi begins to completely focus on the state, which hasn't got a sight of prominent leaders after the demise of political giants Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. To display that the stronghold can be built by the young fleet amid veterans, Modi and the BJP Central leadership had unanimously decided to appoint 37-year-old Annamalai as the Tamil Nadu BJP President.

Annamalai was the former IPS officer and his elevation has come a day after the previous president L Murugan was made the Union Minister of State in Modi's drive of cabinet overhaul. Annamalai had joined the party in August 2020 and the central leadership was brave enough to breach the party's policy in awarding Annamalai a top post while he is yet to mark his first year with the party. Annamalai is a growing leader of the party in the state and his defeat in the assembly polls didn't collapse his political growth. 

After joining BJP, Annamalai has said that he is naturally fit for BJP and remained a young hope for the party in Tamil Nadu amid a pile of veterans. The experts closely observing the developments say that the significant moves of appointing Murugan as the Union Minister and Annamalai as the state president have showcased that BJP is diverting its political direction from blindly sailing towards the shore of upper castes, particularly Brahmins, the die-hard vote bank of the BJP.

Murugan is a leader from the backward caste and he leading the party in the state for over a year and even went on to contest in the assembly polls. He was in a loyal circle of the BJP's Central leadership and it was through Murugan that the BJP attempted to voice for Tamil Hindus by taking Lord Murugan in its hands, rather than carrying the party's signature God Lord Ram. Though Tamil Nadu is a Dravidian soil, Murugan's Vetri Vel Yatra had drawn major attention across the state. 

After elevating Murugan to the Union Ministry, Modi has appointed Annamalai as BJP state president to prove that BJP is working for all castes in the state, an apparent bid to comforting the castes in all four directions. By inducting Murugan to the Union Ministry, BJP is trying to show that it is working for Dalits in the state, and with Annamalai's big elevation within a year, the saffron camp aims to earn the support of the Vellalar Gounder community, to which Annamalai belongs to. 

Annamalai is a native of Karur, Tamil Nadu and it is one of the districts in the western zone with the stronghold of Gounder communities. It has given significant vote support to the BJP and ADMK in the recently-held assembly polls. BJP has four MLAs in the current Tamil Nadu assembly and two of them - Vanathi Srinivasan (Coimbatore South) and Dr Saraswathi (Modakurichi) are elected from the western zone.

The other two MLAs are Nainar Nagendran (Tirunelveli) and Gandhi (Nagercoil). Of these two, BJP has appointed Nagendran as the party's legislative leader in which he will be leading the MLAs and party in the assembly. The BJP's drive of appointing Nagendran as the legislative party leader has politics in it - comforting the prominent Dhevar community to which Nagendran belongs. These three leaders had become the face of the BJP in converting their communities into a vote bank. 

Speaking to a news agency, a prominent political observer said that the BJP wants to display that the party's leadership is committed to giving more importance to the leaders from Tamil Nadu, which in a way would aid the party's growth in the state. It must be noted that Tamilisai Soundararajan has become the Governor of Telangana and Vanathi Srinivasan, the current BJP MLA in Tamil Nadu, was appointed as the party's National President of Mahila Morcha (women's wing). 

Now, Murugan has been made a Union Minister and Annamalai has become the new state president of BJP. These political equations are evident of how Modi aims to develop the party in the state. Modi and BJP's Central leadership have decided that Annamalai is the right choice to lead the party in the state, which has sent four MLAs to its assembly after two decades. For Modi, Tamil Nadu is a crucial state where he is not welcomed fully and it has more dissents against his seven-year-long regime. 

With a new leadership unit in the state, BJP has unveiled a plan for Tamil Nadu in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. By appointing Annamalai, Modi desires to achieve in bringing the young fleet behind the party, by clearing the clouds that it only encourages the politics of major religion and caste. Though it had lost in the assembly polls and running through a boiling alliance with the ADMK, Modi aims to achieve BJP's objective in the state through Annamalai and becoming a power-centric party in the state within the next assembly polls, by not losing allegiance to the party's die-hard vote bank and to its favourite gods.