After leaving the BJP in June , the party’s former Tamil Nadu president planned to spend at least a year building an independent political movement, establish his own party, and prepare for the 2031 Assembly elections. But barely four months into the experiment, the timetable has shrunk. This, in a sense, is likely behind the unusually sharp criticism of his former party and the Narendra Modi government .

Annamalai’s “We The Leaders” movement, which had set an ambitious membership target of five million, has struggled to move beyond roughly two million supporters, said people familiar with the exercise. Apart from the slow recruitment, the concern is that political enthusiasm surrounding Annamalai may diminish further if he waits too long to offer his supporters an election to fight. A political project conceived with the luxury of time is discovering the inconvenience of having too much of it.

Annamalai has consequently begun advancing his plans.…