Annamalai plans 3-month break for UK fellowship, aides say no link to poll defeat

A month after the BJP failed to win a single seat in the Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu, its state chief K Annamalai may be headed for a sabbatical to the UK for a fellowship programme.

A BJP source said the three-month fellowship, at the University of Oxford, was in the cards for long, with Annamalai having decided on the sabbatical even before the results.

The Chevening Gurukul Fellowship for Leadership and Excellence, a programme designed for “young leaders and mid-career professionals with notable leadership potential”, begins in mid-September and concludes in December. Annamalai has reportedly approached the high command for permission to accept the fellowship.

Annamalai had led ahigh-profile Lok Sabha campaign in Tamil Nadu, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders making frequent visits to the state which the party has been nurturing for long. Annamalai, an IPS officer-turned-politician, who was chosen to head the Tamil Nadu BJP unit over several senior leaders, lost from his own seat of Coimbatore.

However, sources said, the party has not lost faith in the 39-year-old leader, whose aggressive style is believed to have prepared a solid ground for the BJP in Tamil Nadu. In 12 of the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP-led NDA finished second, pushing the AIADMK to the third position.

A BJP leader said Annamalai was keen to take up the fellowship, and sees it as a break that will help him recharge his batteries after the polls and his statewide foot-march, ‘Enn Mann, Enn Makkal’, preceding them. An Annamalai aide said: “An average politician spends his life, from dawn to dusk, clad in white, visiting weddings, attending funerals, temples, and party meetings. Annamalai wants to be different. He