A group of people from Bharatiya Janata Party who had left the party after the Tamil Nadu assembly elections began their own party in Salem on Monday.

The outfit is named Marumalarchi Bharatiya Janata Party (MBJP). They said that the party would prefer to stay away from casteism and communalism but focus on Tamil traditions. The symbol of the party is twin swords with the same colour scheme as of BJP. The BJP’s former Dharmapuri district general secretary JK Jayakumar is the state president of the new party, according to The New Indian Express.

The party president Jayakumar stated that only 12 lakh members of BJP out of the total 50 lakh members voted for the party in the Assembly elections. He blamed the state leaders for not understanding people’s expectations and people at the grassroots. He stated few issues like the interstate river linking, jallikattu, fishermen issues and claimed that these issues were not well addressed, reports TNIE.

Furthermore, he said that the BJP state leaders did not say anything when the Karnataka chief minister refused to send out water to Tamil Nadu. Speaking about the new party he said that they will begin by conducting a campaign from September 19 at Tiruvanamalai for free education in both government and private institutions.

However, state president Tamilisai Soundarajan said that the party’s Salem unit was asked to file a report regarding this and the person who began the party was expelled from the party during the election campaign for anti-party activities.