Chennai, Aug 10 : The Tamil Nadu BJP will train 26,000 volunteers and deploy them to the villages of the state to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. This was announced by party state president K. Annamalai on Tuesday. The party is gearing up for this massive deployment of health volunteers in order to curb a possible third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The state president said that these volunteers would be deployed at 13,000 villages in the state. Annamalai, while addressing a state-level health volunteers workshop at Tindivanam, said that the DMK which was opposed to the central government is now praising the work done by the central government to contain Covid-19. The vaccination programmes of the central government have also drawn praise from parties like DMK which were opposing the BJP and the central government day in and day out, the BJP state president told the party cadres. BJP's former national secretary H. Raja, former state president C.P. Radhakrishnan and Co-in charge Sudhakar Reddy also spoke on the occasion. The party has already formed a 17-member committee to prepare itself for the ensuing elections to the rural bodies which is to be announced soon. The polls will take place in nine newly carved out districts of the state and the saffron party is working at the grassroots level in these districts to make a mark in the rural body polls as it is buoyed by the success of electing 4 MLAs in the recent assembly elections. /IANS