The BJP, struggling to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu, has been rocked by a sleazy video featuring one of the top State-level leaders of the party. K T Raghavan, the party’s State Secretary, a familiar face in TV channel debates, had quit on his own following the release of a video in which he was seen in a compromising position with a party supporter.
The video was aired through YouTube at the instance of Madhan Ravichandran, who himself is a BJP worker. Ravichandran has been a party hopper and reached the BJP hardly months ago with the blessings of the High Command. Ravichandran had told the media that he had told K Annamalai, the president of the Tamil Nadu BJP that he had sleazy videos of more than a dozen leaders of the party with him to which Annamalai is reported to have asked him to go and get the video aired. The video featuring Raghavan was the first one to be aired through YouTube.
Annamalai remained incommunicado despite efforts by The Pioneer to contact him but he retaliated by expelling Ravichandran and his associate from the party. The videos are also being seen as the reflection of the discontentment brewing up among a section of the BJP leadership is Tamil Nadu who feel being side-lined by Annamalai and the new crop of leaders.
“What Ravichandran has done is not a sting operation but a honey-trap. He is working for a mafia to blackmail the BJP and its State chief Annamalai. I feel Ravichandran should be arrested under criminal charges,” said Arjun Sampath, President, Hindu People’s Party. Sampath is of the view that the sleazy videos have been done to destroy the BJP at the instance of the DMK and the Left parties who are worried over the growth of the nationalist party in Tamil Nadu.
He said Ravichandran was sore at the fact that he had not been accommodated in the party structure. “Basically he is a blackmailer. Earlier there were reports of him alleging Udhayanidhi Stalin (son of chief minister M K Stalin) in a case which has been hushed by following the intervention of DMK leadership,” said Sampath.
Ramakrishnan Gauthaman, political commentator, said the whole incident has been a setback for the BJP. “The party lost its strong presence in the social media because of the ouster of Ravichandran. The resignation of Raghavan is noteworthy because he was the party’s livewire in mainstream media,” said Gauthaman, He also pointed out that the DMK was feeling uncomfortable with Annamalai who has been questioning the ruling party on many issues while the AIADMK was becoming weaker by the day.
