Chennai: Excitement and anticipation pervaded the State BJP unit as the leaders were upbeat over the finalization of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Chennai on Thursday to decide on their State leadership issue and the alliance for the Assembly elections through a series of meetings all through Friday at the ITC Grand Chola hotel both with BJP leaders and also other potential allies.As per the schedule made available by the security officials on Wednesday, Amit Shah would not be visiting anyone outside the hotel precincts either on Friday or Thursday, when he would be arriving by a special flight from New Delhi at 10.15 pm to a rousing welcome by BJP functionaries at the Chennai Old airport premises.After driving straight to the hotel, the Union Minister would start his deliberations with different groups of people in the morning of Friday and continue the discussions till late in the evening before taking the same special flight back to Delhi in the night.A special team of security personnel have already arrived in Chennai to oversee the arrangements in the ground and would be holding a special meeting with the city police, CISF and other VIP security personnel. The meeting would also decide on whom to be allowed to welcome the Union Minister when he arrives at the airport and also whom to permit to see him off.A mad scramble to have a tete-e-tete with Amit Shah has begun within the party as the visit holds great significance to the State unit, whose next president is expected to be finalized or at least discussed on Friday. So the different camps in the party would like to put across their viewpoints to the leader who would take the final call.Ever since AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami was summoned to Delhi on March 25 for a meeting with Amit Shah, which was followed by State President K Annamalai rushing to Delhi, the buzz in the political circles is that there would be a change in the State leadership of BJP and the suggestion was that the AIADMK had almost finalized the revival of their alliance.It was rumoured that the State BJP with Annamalai at the helm would not be able to work in tandem with the AIADMK. So the speculation was that the new president would be announced by April 9 and even a few names were making the rounds without any basis. Now that the news had arrived of Amit Shah himself coming down to Chennai with no other official engagement, the State BJP is agog with expectations,Though there was a strong suggestion that the BJP high command was in favour of changing Annamalai to make things easy for Palaniswami to deal with the party, there is a strong lobby within the State BJP that feels that Annamalai is the best person to lead the party as he is popular among the youth of the State.None of the alternative candidates touted so far could be as inspiring as Annamalai, many in the party feel. Perhaps, Amit Shah will weigh all the suggestions and then make a decision.
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