Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President K. Annamalai protested against the police in Coimbatore after personnel stopped his convoy stating he violated the time limit sanctioned for campaigning on late Sunday night, April 14. The Coimbatore MP candidate blamed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government for the police action labelling it as "draconian". Annamalai's campaign vehicle had crossed the city's Ondipudur area when the incident took place at around 10:30 p.m. The police denied entry to the vehicle stating that it was beyond the permitted time limit for campaigning.
An agitated Annamalai then protested against the police action stating that he wasn't campaigning, but was instead greeting the people while he was inside the vehicle. The police then registered a case against him and 300 other party workers under sections 143 and 341 of the IPC, with the BJP leader then taking to X (formerly Twitter) to issue a statement. Annamalai wrote, "The excesses of the DMK Govt through the Police force have gone beyond limits as they stopped our Campaign vehicle yet again today for flimsy reasons. The police stopped our vehicle under the pretext that I was not allowed to campaign after 10 pm while travelling through a pre-approved point. Despite explaining that we were not campaigning, the lights in our vehicle were off, and we only wanted to meet the 2,000 @BJP4TamilNadu cadres at the pre-approved point through which our campaign vehicle was passing." He further stated, "Despite explaining to the Police officer that his actions were beyond the instructions laid down by EC, they compelled us to take an alternative route. The draconian DMK Govt will face the people's wrath when Coimbatore Will unanimously casts its vote disapproving 3 years of misgovernance on the 19th of April."
The excesses of the DMK Govt through the Police force have gone beyond limits as they stopped our Campaign vehicle yet again today for flimsy reasons.
The Police stopped our vehicle under the pretext that I was not allowed to campaign after 10 PM while travelling through a… pic.twitter.com/NqVYeAGw0F— K.Annamalai (மோடியின் குடும்பம்) (@annamalai_k) April 14, 2024
Annamalai is contesting from the Coimbatore constituency in the upcoming 2024 Indian general election, while the ruling DMK has fielded former Coimbatore Mayor Ganapathi Rajkumar for the Opposition-led INDIA bloc. The voting for the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu is scheduled to place in a single place on April 19.
