Annamalai’s 'Gujarat company' remark about Centre resonates with Keralam’s ruling front and Opposition over north-south disparities

Annamalai's 'Gujarat firm' remark concerning Centre resonates with Keralam's ruling front and Opposition over north-south disparities Published – August 20, 2026 02: 54 pm IST – Thiruvananthapuram.

Key points

• Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tamil Nadu State president K.
• In a Facebook post on Thursday, Mr Varier argued that BJP's "discrimination against South India was organisational as well as linguistic."
• Mr Suresh remarked BJP-ruled States have benefited by aligning State and Central governments' development priorities seamlessly, furthering Mr Modi's "double-engine government" mantra.
• When contacted, Mr Ramachandran remarked the Congress was not endorsing Mr Annamalai politically, but could not assist but agree with him.
• Not one South Indian leader has created it into the BJP's national leadership roster.

Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tamil Nadu State president K. Annamalai's recent criticism that the Central administration has mutated into a "Gujarati company" appears to have resonated with the ruling front and the Opposition in Kerala on Thursday (August 20, 2026).

Mr Annamalai, who broke ranks with the BJP in June, caused a stir by alleging that the BJP's national leadership's "Gujarat pivot" smacked of systemic apathy towards non-BJP-ruled South Indian States.

Mr Annamalai had accused the Centre of abandoning the principles of symmetric federalism by disproportionately channelling mammoth industrial and infrastructure projects, fiscal resources and big-ticket events to Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah's home State.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) Central committee member and former Keralam Finance Minister Thomas Isaac informed The Hindu that the widening inter-State difference in economic development was "hurting even Modi sympathisers."

"Market forces are not solely responsible for the lopsided development pattern. The Modi dispensation has forced the yawning economic inequality on the federal polity by concentrating infrastructure spending and industrial projects in BJP-ruled States", Dr Isaac remarked.

Former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran and Sandeep Varier, a Congress legislator from Thrikkaripur who quit the BJP in 2025, lauded Mr Annamalai for "belatedly recognising the home truths" regarding the Modi administration.

When contacted, Mr Ramachandran remarked the Congress was not endorsing Mr Annamalai politically, but could not assist but agree with him. "Mr Modi has undoubtedly fostered a rapidly-widening inequality between BJP and non-BJP-ruled States and fuelled regional disparities. Nevertheless, the skewed agglomeration of capital and funds in BJP-ruled States has not benefited the common person. Southern States' human development index, health indices and literacy rates far outrank those of Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh, where development solely benefits corporates", Mr Ramachandran continued.

"Not one South Indian leader has created it into the BJP's national leadership roster. Moreover, BJP is christening pan-Indian laws and public schemes in Hindi. It is a subtle imposition of Hindi", he wrote.

BJP State general secretary S. Suresh remarked Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh had emerged as "magnets for international investment" by slashing red-tape and emerging as efficient, business-friendly States, and not as Mr Modi was in power at the Centre.

He remarked "the Congress-CPI(M) political gambit to broadcast a false north-south divide narrative would not pass muster with South Indians."

In short, annamalai's ' Gujarat company' remark about Centre resonates with Keralam's ruling front and is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.