Chennai/IBNS: Adding fuel to speculation that he may be replaced as the Tamil Nadu BJP president, K Annamalai has said that he is not in the running to be the next state chief of the party.

AIADMK chief Edapaddi K Palaniswami has made Annamalai's removal a precondition for allying with the party again ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections next year, NDTV reported, quoting sources.

Annamalai's criticism of AIADMK leaders was seen as the main reason for the party severing all ties with the BJP in 2023.

Responding to a question in Coimbatore on Saturday, Annamalai said, "I am not in the race to become the next president of the Tamil Nadu BJP."

Even though the BJP did not make significant electoral gains in Tamil Nadu since Annamalai was appointed the chief of the state unit in 2021, the 40-year-old is credited with giving it much more visibility, which is significant in a state given the saffron party's previous history of hardly any penetration.

A former IPS officer, engineer, and MBA, Annamalai is one of the fiercest critics of the ruling DMK. He had captured the national spotlight when he flogged himself six times in December last year to mark the beginning of a mega protest against the DMK after a student of Chennai's Anna University was raped.

"Anybody who understands Tamil culture will understand this. Flogging ourselves,  punishing ourselves, it is part of this culture... This protest is not against a specific person or thing, it is against a continuous injustice that is happening in the state," he had said.

NDTV, quoting BJP sources, reported that Annamalai's removal will not be a punishment but part of an approach to expand the footprint of the party in the state.

If reports are to be believed, a bigger role for him in the party or the government at the Centre has not been ruled out.