Thought to be a favourite of the BJP party, Coimbatore turned out to be a dampener as the last biggest rally held by the party here certainly proved otherwise as only a few hundreds remained while the special speaker was addressing on Monday at the VOC Park grounds here.

More irritatingly to the party, most of the people who had gathered for the meeting started leaving the arena even as the special speaker Jagat Prakash Nadda, the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, was addressing the near empty crowd.

Ironically, BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Rao had earlier claimed that there was no vacancy for other parties as Coimbatore people had decided to support the saffron front as he felt the crowd support for the meeting was overwhelming.

It was indeed true that a decent crowd who had come in many mini vans had gathered for the party meeting in the arena, yet the crowd could not be kept down till Nadda, who had come in place of BJP President Amit Shah, could finish his speech. Even those people who were wearing party headbands and shawls moved away leaving the arena almost pathetically empty.

The party’s State Vice-President and candidate of the South Constituency who is likely to have a big say in the elections in vote share, had earlier stated that the party had given Coimbatore, “No. 1 Status”, considering the turnout at the 2014 Assembly elections.

Notably, the BJP had stood second in Coimbatore in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, with C.P. Radhakrishnan of the party grabbing 3,89,701 votes, which was more than 25 per cent of the total vote share pushing the DMK to third place.

However, the recent meeting would have definitely left the national and even state leaders infuriated because of the crowd response. Yet, sources close to the BJP had cited the cancellation of Amit Shah’s visit to the poor response of the crowd.

Also the lack of Tamil speakers in the BJP did not attract a large crowd. Nadda, who addressed the meeting, complained that the State Government was not cooperating with the Central Government to bring benefits to people.

Meanwhile, BJP’s opposition at the Centre, Congress received a more decent reception in the city earlier when Rahul Gandhi, the Vice-President of the Indian National Congress spoke on the same VOC grounds and from the same stage.