Chennai: State BJP president K Annamalai whipped himself in public outside his house in Coimbatore on Friday morning in the presence of his supporters, some of whom rushed in and stopped him from continuing with the self-flagellation after he swung the white colored whip around his bare torso eight times.
Annamalai had announced that he would whip himself to draw the attention of the government to the sexual assault on an engineering student inside the Anna University campus on December 23, over which he had asked his party functionaries to organize protests outside their homes, which led to a handful of persons whipping themselves.
With the opposition parties going to town with the incident though the police arrested the culprit within 6 hours of receiving the complaint from the affected girl, the AIADMK, too, had announced a protest in front of district Collectors’ office all over the State but the agitation was called off in view of the death of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
However, Annamalai kept his word and organized the protest by presenting himself without a shirt and lashed himself with the whip that was reportedly kept before the idol of the Singanallur Chellandi amman temple seeking the goddess’ blessings.
Some of the women followers of the BJP leader who were present at the venue broke down while pleading with him to stop the protest that was undertaken for the welfare of women in the State.
Though Annamalai, who had already sworn to go barefoot as long as the DMK was in power in the State, came for the protest without any footwear and without shirt for the self-flagellation exercise, rival party leaders and some BJP leaders mocked at him, some of them saying that it was primitive practice.
A DMK leader said that Annamalai might have taken a vow to whip himself for some other reason and that the BJP leader will not be able to wear footwear all through his life, suggesting that the DMK cannot be unseated from power. But Annamalai changed his vow and said that he would go barefoot for 48 days.
Congress leader Su Thirunavukarasar, who was a Minister in the BJP government led by A B Vajpayee, said that Annamalai had gone on a sabbatical saying that was joining an university in UK for higher studies by the former IPS officer seemed to had learned only some circus tricks.
Apart from the political rivals, even social media enthusiasts trolled the BJP leader for the unique protest that he undertook because he was unable to hold agitations with the DMK government cracking down on the protestors.
