K. Annamalai

K. Annamalai (born 4 June 1984) is former IPS officer and an Indian politician who is the Tamil Nadu State President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2021.
He was born in an agricultural family and raised in Thottampatti, a village in the Karur district of Tamil Nadu.
==Family and Education==
Annamalai hails from Thottampatti village in Karur district from an agricultural family. He completed his schooling in Karur, Namakkal and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore. He was among the first generation in his village to be graduated. He pursued his Master of Business Administration (MBA) course at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. He sat for the Indian Civil Services Examination conducted by the UPSC in 2011.
==Indian Police Service==
Annamalai took his civil service examination and was selected as an officer in the Indian Police Service in the Karnataka cadre in 2011. Annamalai started his career as an IPS Officer in the State of Karnataka.
He served as the Assistant Superintendent of Police from September 2013 to December 2014 in the Karkala subdivision, Udupi District of Karnataka. He then served as the Superintendent of Police of Udupi District from January 2015 to August 2016. Annamalai was posted in Chikkamangaluru district of Karnataka from August 2016 to October 2018 as Superintendent of Police. His last stint as an IPS officer was from October 2018 to June 2019, when he was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Police of Bengaluru South in the State of Karnataka.
Annamalai was also known as the "Singham" of Karnataka. He led four police stations, Karkala Town, Karkala Rural, Padubidri and Kaup to get the ISO 9001:2008 certification. While working as Assistant Superintendent of Police, Karkala, he built a close contact with people through visiting educational institutions and giving lectures.
He quit from the Indian Police Service in 2019 to join politics.
==Politics==
Annamalai came from a non political background and was inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideology. Being inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi he decided to join politics after meeting him and the BJP President Amit Shah, a year after leaving the police force. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national headquarters in the presence of BJP general secretary Muralidhar Rao and the party’s Tamil Nadu chief L. Murugan. He was appointed as the state vice president for BJP in August 2020. He contested from the Aravakurichi constituency in 2021 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election. He was determined to contest from his home constituency even though his chance of victory was predicted to be slim. He lost the elections by 24,816 votes though he secured 68,553 votes. Months later he was appointed as Tamil Nadu BJP President by National President J. P. Nadda on July 8, 2021 becoming the youngest ever state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In July 2023, he launched the En Mann En Makkal Campaign which is flagged off by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
===Controversies===
In March 2023, Annamalai was booked by the Tamil Nadu Police under the Indian Penal Code for promoting disharmony, enmity or feelings of hatred between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, and language. The Cyber Crime wing of the state police registered a case against him after a tweet in which he linked the ruling DMK to the misleading spread of rumours about north Indian migrant workers being abused in Tamil Nadu. These misleading claims appear to have been repeated by many news media channels, amid a warning by the governments of Tamil Nadu and Bihar to refrain from spreading such claims.
==Overseas engagements==
Annamalai made a couple of visits to Sri Lanka in April 2022 and in February 2023. During a four day visit in May 2022 he participated in the May Day celebrations of the Ceylon Workers Congress and met with Sri Lankan lawmakers, Sri Lankan Tamils|ethnic Tamil Leaders, representatives of NGOs and political leaders. Reinstating the official stance of India, he insisted upon the implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment and for the recovery of Katchatheevu. He voiced against the genocide against the Sri Lankan Tamils and also outlined the challenges faced by the Malayaha Tamils and their forced migrations.
In June 2023 he took part in the Young Leaders Forum, UK-India Week 2023, organized by the India Global Forum at Nehru Centre, London for promoting India–UK bilateral ties. He also led a four member delegation which participated in the Transnational ‘BRICS political parties plus dialogue’ 2023 at Johannesburg, South Africa which was attended by over 50 political parties from BRICS and other nations.
==Awards & Certifications==
# Recipient of vice-president of India Award for topping the Directors assessment for the training period 2011–2012 at Sardar Vallabhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad.
# Winner of Esprit-de-Corps award at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, instituted by the 1968 batch of IAS Officers and Sangay Lhaden Shenga award instituted by the 1992 batch of IAS officers for showing “Exemplary Leadership Qualities” during the combined training of All India Service Officers during the year 2010–11.
# SP Mukherjee award for Politics in 2022
==Publications==
* Stepping Beyond Khaki – Revelations Of A Real- Life Singham
==See also==
* Vanathi Srinivasan
* L. Murugan
* Politics of India
Category:Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Tamil Nadu
Category:1984 births
Category:Living people
Category:Indian Police Service officers