There was a time when K Annamalai was introduced on television as “Karnataka’s Singham”. The IPS officer who cleaned up Udupi. The man who quit the khaki, joined the BJP calling himself a loyal foot soldier, and spent four years as Tamil Nadu party chief telling us that nationalism was a way of life.
That Annamalai seems to have gone on long leave. In his place, we have a gentleman who resigned from the BJP in June, launched a movement called We The Leaders, and on 21 October posted a breathless thread asking whether the BJP is giving the Cockroach Janta Party “free publicity”. The answer, Mr Annamalai, is no. But you certainly are.
The cockroach that wasn’t a conspiracy
His opening shot is the cockroach effigy burnt at a Ramlila ground in Pitampura on Vijayadashami. Annamalai did some “curious” digging and discovered, like a detective cracking a cold case, that it was organised by BJP MLA Ashok Goel.
Brilliant. Except that Goel’s Ramlila has burnt effigies of Naxalism and terrorism in earlier years. Delhi’s Ramlilas have added a “fourth effigy” for over a decade: corruption in 2012, crimes against women in 2013. Punjab Police burnt a “Demon of Drugs” last year. This Dussehra alone, Delhi committees torched effigies of air pollution and counterfeit medicines, and Indore burnt a terrorist.
A local Ramlila is not a party resolution. A sitting MLA’s choice of effigy at his neighbourhood Dussehra is his own, not the BJP’s view, and he has every right to it, just as Annamalai has every right to his threads. Since when does every MLA need headquarters’ clearance to pick an effigy? And who turned a neighbourhood effigy into a national headline? AAP’s Saurabh Bharadwaj, with his complaint about hurt sentiments. And now Annamalai. If the CJP has a PR team, its founding members sit in AAP’s office and in Coimbatore.
And if he wants to pick this incident, let us talk about rights. Annamalai once took to Facebook to stand up for Perumal Murugan’s right to write what he wrote, however much it hurt many devotees. Fair enough. Then why does a writer’s freedom of expression deserve his defence, but an MLA’s choice of effigy at his own Ramlila deserves his ridicule? Or is freedom of expression sacred only when it does not belong to the BJP?
Make up your mind, sir
Then the grand theory: is the BJP deliberately inflating the CJP to split Opposition votes?
Read his own thread. In one paragraph, the government is crushing the CJP: denotifying Jantar Mantar, jailing its leaders, rejecting their sureties. In the next, the same government is secretly building the CJP into a big player. Which is it? A party that wants to grow a vote-splitter does not put its leaders in Tihar. You cannot run both conspiracies at once, unless the point is not logic but noise.
Nobody banned protest. Read the order.
Let me say this clearly. Nobody in this country is saying people cannot protest. Not the BJP, not the government, not the police. Dissent is a democratic right. But protest has a democratic way, and that way runs through permissions, designated sites and the law.
Jantar Mantar was not shut in a fit of panic. In October 2017, the National Green Tribunal banned protests on Jantar Mantar Road, a residential stretch under the Delhi Master Plan, after residents complained of noise and filth. The 2026 order came after a Home Ministry committee reviewed alternatives, and it designated three new venues: Ramlila Ground, Burari Ground and CBD Ground. Denotifying one road and offering three grounds is not curbing protest. It is managing it.
And ask Connaught Place what “peaceful protest” cost. The New Delhi Traders Association said shopkeepers were doing barely a quarter of their usual business during the July agitation. Traders claim Connaught Place lost ₹150–200 crore on 10 October alone, and around ₹2,000 crore across Delhi’s markets since. Shankar Market shopkeepers put it simply: protesting is your right, but so is our livelihood. These are not BJP karyakartas. These are small traders, hawkers and restaurant workers. Where are they in Annamalai’s thread? Or do they not trend?
Arrested for violations, not for views
Now his favourite grievance: the detention of CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka.
Here is the timeline he skips. On 10 October, Das, Ranka and Abhijeet Dipke were held in preventive custody. On 11 October, they were released after signing a ₹50,000 bond to keep the peace for one year. One year. On 13 October, two days later, Das and Ranka climbed over the locked gates of the denotified Jantar Mantar. Dipke announced a fresh demonstration at Connaught Place within days of his own bond.
That is not dissent. That is a deliberate test of the state’s patience, filmed for social media. They were arrested for breaking a written undertaking, not for questioning the SIR or the Election Commission.
The magistrate found the sureties unfit; one could not even give basic details of the man he was vouching for. The magistrate received threats, and a new one had to take over. And when the CJP leaders rushed to the Delhi High Court today? Justice Subramonium Prasad noted they had breached their bond, observed that authorities had shown them leniency, reminded them they were not exactly Gen Z, and pointed them to the statutory remedy. They withdrew. If the SEM was the government’s puppet, here was the stage to prove it. They walked off it.
A question for the former SP
Mr Annamalai, you wore the khaki for eight years. In Udupi and Chikkamagaluru, did you never arrest anyone for violating prohibitory orders? Never invoke preventive provisions before a tense procession? Or did you handle every unruly crowd with a TED talk?
Every police officer knows what a kalandra is, what a peace bond means, and what follows its breach. You knew it in uniform. You know it now. Only the side of the camera has changed.
Delhi is the capital, with Parliament and embassies a stone’s throw from these sites. Its police handle crowds on a scale few forces see. We have watched them hold the line with professionalism while CJP volunteers provoked, jostled and filmed them. To call that a “real disservice” from a press meet in Coimbatore is not policing wisdom. It is politics.
The colour change
Annamalai says he disagrees with the CJP’s “antics” but completely supports their questions. That is a man standing on two boats. He also says jailing leaders only makes them more popular. Should the law go soft on anyone with a following? A former IPS officer saying this should worry us.
The man who once called himself Modi’s soldier now quotes Modi’s Gujarat-era speeches against him. The man who led the charge against Rahul Gandhi now says Rahul has every right to question the SIR. The nationalist tag is being peeled off, one thread at a time, because a new political product needs fresh packaging.
Selective conscience
When the DMK government refused to light the Karthigai Deepam on the Deepathoon at Thiruparankundram despite the Madras High Court’s orders, Annamalai was thunderous. He called the government’s appeal condemnable and branded the DMK anti-Hindu.
Then the government changed. The TVK government has taken the very same line, saying the existing practice will continue, and has gone to the Supreme Court against the High Court. BJP leaders have taken it on. So has the Hindu Munnani, with a statewide campaign.
And Annamalai? He finds time to fret over the surety bonds of two CJP leaders in Delhi. Where is the same fire for Murugan devotees in Madurai, a few hours from his own Coimbatore? Has the Deepam become inconvenient for a man courting new friends?
A question worth asking
In 2024, Annamalai was selected for the Chevening Gurukul Fellowship, a leadership programme run by the UK Foreign Office and hosted at Oxford. Nothing wrong with a fellowship. But one may wonder. Did the British Foreign Office’s idea of “leadership” leave a mark on how he now views Indian institutions? Is it a coincidence that his vocabulary of crackdowns and muzzling sounds so much like the commentary on India that circulates in Western capitals?
I am only asking. Asking questions seems to be the fashion now.
The real disservice
Annamalai could have told the CJP to protest at the designated grounds and honour the bonds they signed. He could have stood with the traders of Connaught Place. He could have said: raise every question you want, but within the law. That would have been leadership.
Instead, he chose to become the most articulate loudspeaker for a group whose methods he himself calls “antics”. The CJP, he said, could not have asked for a better PR team even if it had paid for one. His words. They fit him perfectly.
AK is an IT professional with 25+ experience in BFSI sector. He is a Political Analyst and founder of @dharmic_indians. Also serves as Governing committee member of @AalayamKaappom foundation.
