Tirunelveli lawmaker and former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader Nainar Nagendran is set to become the 13th president of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit.
Union home minister Amit Shah posted on X that Nagendran was the only person to have filed a nomination for the post. Nagendran will replace K Annamalai, paving the way for the AIADMK to come back into the National Democratic Alliance fold.
Before Shah’s arrival in Chennai on Thursday night, the BJP Tamil Nadu unit issued a notification for nominations to be filed for state president, days after Annamalai already ruled himself out of the race. On Friday, while Shah held a long meeting with RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy at his residence, Nagendran filed his nomination in the party office. His nomination was supported by Annamalai, and senior leaders L Murugan, Vanathi Srinivasan among others.
Shah said Annamalai had commendable accomplishments.
“Whether it is carrying the policies of PM Shri @narendramodi Ji to people or the programs of the party from village to village, Annamalai ji’s contribution has been unprecedented,” Shah said on X.
An announcement of Nagendran as the new state chief is expected on Saturday.
Both Annamalai and Nagendran were present with Shah when he announced that the AIADMK will lead the NDA for the 2026 elections. The Dravidian giant had left the NDA in 2023 after a bitter fallout over Annamalai, whom the party alleged repeatedly insulted Dravidian icons and party matriarch J Jayalalithaa.
Nagendran first became a legislator in 2001. He was part of Jayalalithaa’s cabinet in 2001 as minister for transport, industries, and electricity, but was dropped when she came back to power in 2011.
After Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016, Nagendran joined the BJP in August 2017. He became an MLA from his stronghold in Tirunelveli in the 2021 assembly elections.
He was among the four BJP legislators to enter the assembly and was made the floor leader. He had won this seat in 2006 and 2011, both times as the AIADMK candidate.
“He still commands a strong vote bank from the AIADMK which has transferred to him even after he moved to the BJP,” said an AIADMK leader from Tirunelveli. Nagendran kept a low profile in his political life, and is the opposite of former IPS-turned politician Annamalai’s aggressive style of politics. Nagendran enjoys a cordial relationship with AIADMK leaders despite switching parties, said a BJP leader.
He hails from the Thevar community, dominant in the southern region of Tamil Nadu – a key factor in his selection. Both AIADMK chief E Palaniswami and Annamalai hail from the Gounder community, which is dominant in the western region. “Nagendran is the first Thevar who is TN’s state BJP president,” a senior BJP leader said. “So far we have had three state presidents from the Nadar community, 2 from the Gounder community and two from the Scheduled Caste community.”
“The decision on Nagendran was made a week ago,” a second senior BJP leader said. Even as a sitting MLA, Nagendran was chosen to contest the parliamentary elections in 2024 from Tirunelveli but lost to Congress candidate Robert Bruce.