Chennai, Tamil Nadu:

Tamil Nadu BJP president and Coimbatore Bharatiya Janata Party candidate K Annamalai today kicked off campaigning with a massive road show in preparation for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The roadshow started at Teppakulam Maidanam in Madurai around 11 am with Mr Annamalai standing on an open car.

Annamalai is contesting the general election from Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency.

Earlier, he lashed out at the ruling DMK and its president Stalin, calling them enemies of Tamil Nadu and the people of the state.

“Stalin and DMK are the enemies of Tamil Nadu and the people of the state. Today, only the BJP is campaigning on the ground,” he said.

Annamalai earlier said: “June 4 will prove that Tamil Nadu will support Modi to a great extent.”

Annamalai filed his nomination from the Coimbatore Assembly constituency on March 28.

Annamalai, an IPS cadre officer in Karnataka, resigned in 2019 and joined the BJP in 2020. A year later, he was appointed state president of the BJP.

All 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will go to polls in the first phase of the general election on April 19 and counting of votes, among other phases, is scheduled to take place on June 4.

In 2019, the DMK swept the Lok Sabha polls in the state, winning 23 Lok Sabha seats and garnering the largest share of 33.2 per cent in the total vote. Its ruling ally, the Congress Party, won eight seats, accounting for 12.9% of the total votes cast, while the Communist Party of India won two seats. CPI(M) and IUML won one seat each, while the remaining two seats were won by independent parties.

Elections for the country’s 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases starting from April 19. Nearly 970 million voters are eligible to vote this time.

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