New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the proceedings in a criminal case lodged against Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai for allegedly delivering a hate speech against Christians in an interview to a YouTube channel in October 2022 with regard to bursting firecrackers.

After perusing the transcript of the statements given in the interview, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta observed, “Prima facie, there is no hate speech. No case is made out.” The bench issued a notice to the complainant, who accused Annamalai of delivering a hate speech against Christians in the interview on October 22, 2022 with regard to the bursting of crackers, two days before Diwali.

“Issue notice returnable in the week commencing April 29, 2024. In the meanwhile, there shall be a stay on further proceedings before the trial court,” the bench said in its order.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra and advocate Sai Deepak, appearing in the court on behalf of Annamalai, showed the transcript of the interview to the bench and said it was not a case of hate speech.

Annamalai has moved the top court challenging a Madras High Court order that had refused to quash the summons issued to him in the case.

Refusing to quash the summons on February 8, the high court observed that the psychological impact on an individual or a group must also be considered under the definition of hate speech.

The summons was issued by the trial court based on a complaint filed by a man named V Piyush.

The high court had noted that Annamalai had given an interview to a YouTube channel, the run-time of which was nearly 44.25 minutes, and a six-and-a-half-minute extract of it was shared on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s X (then Twitter) handle on October 22, 2022.

The content of the message was that there was an internationally-funded Christian missionary NGO that was allegedly involved in destroying the Hindu culture by filing cases in the Supreme Court to prevent Hindus from bursting crackers.

Prima facie, the statements disclosed a divisive intent on the petitioner’s part to portray the NGO as acting against Hindu culture, the high court had said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Chennai:

K Annamalai, the chief of BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, today asked party workers to strengthen its hold in the state to take on the ruling DMK after losing AIADMK, an important ally, from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), sources said.

The Tamil Nadu BJP chief urged his party’s district Presidents and state office bearers to work very hard to expand BJP’s negligible presence in the state and to capitalise on what he calls the Modi government’s performance, sources said.

After losing its ally, the AIADMK, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has no strong political party on its side yet in Tamil Nadu.

Speaking to NDTV, Mr Annamalai said, “We will present the report card of Modi government’s work in the last ten years. Be it 2014 or 2019, Tamil Nadu has not repeated the pattern. I am confident the people of the state will reward us with an exponentially high number of MPs for NDA.”

K Annamalai denies violating, what AIADMK terms as coalition dharma, after comments on their former ally’s icons CN Annadurai and J Jayalalithaa.

“I’d not go by what they say in the statement. In politics, decisions are taken based on strategic choices. It’s their individual decision, I would not want to comment,” he said.

The AIADMK lost all three polls it fought when it was in alliance with the BJP, including the Lok Sabha polls it suffered a near rout and the assembly elections. For AIADMK chief, E Palaniswami, it is an acid test for his leadership to reclaim the party’s falling political fortunes since J Jayalalithaa’s death. EPS has also ruled out any U-turn in decision after the alliance was called off.  

“When a resolution is adopted, it is final. The decisions are taken at an all-India level. We were forced to support issues we didn’t agree on due to alliance dharma. Now we have no such situation”, the former Chief Minister said.

The AIADMK and BJP leadership did not even campaign together for the Erode East Bypoll. The Dravidian party saw the BJP as a liability.

Meanwhile, K Annamalai suspended his padayatra until October 16, citing bed rest advised by doctors, triggering speculations about whether the party’s leadership is attempting to reach out to the AIADMK.

While AIADMK is upbeat after snapping ties with the BJP, it is time for a reality check for their former ally (BJP) in Tamil Nadu following a phase of hype.