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

Former Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) Tamil Nadu State president Okay. Annamalai’s latest criticism that the Central authorities has mutated right into a “Gujarati firm” seems to have resonated with the ruling entrance and the Opposition in Kerala on Thursday (August 20, 2026).

Mr Annamalai, who broke ranks with the BJP in June, triggered a stir by alleging that the BJP’s nationwide management’s “Gujarat pivot” smacked of systemic apathy in direction of non-BJP-ruled South Indian States. 

Mr Annamalai had accused the Centre of abandoning the rules of symmetric federalism by disproportionately channelling mammoth industrial and infrastructure initiatives, fiscal assets and big-ticket occasions to Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and House Minister Amit Shah’s residence State. 

Communist Occasion of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] Central committee member and former Keralam Finance Minister Thomas Isaac advised The Hindu that the widening inter-State distinction in financial improvement was “hurting even Modi sympathisers.”

“Market forces usually are not solely answerable for the lopsided improvement sample. The Modi dispensation has pressured the yawning financial inequality on the federal polity by concentrating infrastructure spending and industrial initiatives in BJP-ruled States”, Dr Isaac mentioned. 

Former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran and Sandeep Varier, a Congress legislator from Thrikkaripur who give up the BJP in 2025, lauded Mr Annamalai for “belatedly recognising the house truths” in regards to the Modi authorities. 

When contacted, Mr Ramachandran mentioned the Congress was not endorsing Mr Annamalai politically, however couldn’t assist however agree with him. “Mr Modi has undoubtedly fostered a rapidly-widening inequality between BJP and non-BJP-ruled States and fuelled regional disparities. Nonetheless, the skewed agglomeration of capital and funds in BJP-ruled States has not benefited the widespread particular person. Southern States’ human improvement index, well being indices and literacy charges far outrank these of Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh, the place improvement solely advantages corporates”, Mr Ramachandran added. 

In a Fb put up on Thursday, Mr Varier argued that BJP’s “discrimination towards South India was organisational in addition to linguistic.”

“Not one South Indian chief has made it into the BJP’s nationwide management roster. Furthermore, BJP is christening pan-Indian legal guidelines and public schemes in Hindi, which is a refined imposition of Hindi”, he wrote.

BJP State common secretary S. Suresh mentioned Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh had emerged as “magnets for worldwide funding” by slashing red-tape and rising as environment friendly, business-friendly States, and never as a result of Mr Modi was in energy on the Centre.

Mr Suresh mentioned BJP-ruled States have benefited by aligning State and Central governments’ improvement priorities seamlessly, furthering Mr Modi’s “double-engine authorities” mantra.

He mentioned “the Congress-CPI(M) political gambit to broadcast a false north-south divide narrative wouldn’t go muster with South Indians.”