The outpouring of a massive gathering at the DMK patriarch and former Chief Minister’s fortress forced the ruling DMK to reconsider naming a road in Tiruvarur.
Tiruvarur, one of the five ancient capital Chola Kingdom, is famous for its car festival. The popular chariot is the Aazhi there, the grand 96-feet tall chariot seated on which Sri Thyagaraja goes around the broad streets of Tiruvarur. It is described as an iconic chariot in the sacred verses of Appar in Thevaram, and the temple car festival has been popular at least since the 7th century. A Chola-crafted, immovable stone chariot positioned in the northeastern temple boundary is the cynosure of art lovers’ attention. Thirukuvalai near Tiruvarur is the native place of Karunanidhi.
Last month, the Tiruvarur Municipal Council adopted a resolution to rename the Thyagarajar temple car (rath) south street- after Kalaignar Karunanidhi Veedhi ( street). People and devotees were shocked by this announcement and vent their opposition in social media. Karunanidhi, a rationalist to the core, questioned Hindu beliefs and opposed sporting Hindu religious marks through his writings, speeches and cinema dialogues. He once wrote, “When there is no means to tilling (due to drought) what was the necessity to hold Tiruvarur car festival? In Parasakthi fim, he wrote “When has the Goddess Parasakthi ever spoken? “It is mere stone. If it could talk, wouldn’t it have when you tried to rape my sister? Why do you seek human help when your goddess has the weapon?”. on Ram Sethu issue, Was Sri Ram an engineer, which college he studied? are just a few examples to show hatred against Hindus. He said Hindus are thieves.
A huge crowd thronged a protest rally led by BJP TN chief Annamalai in Tiuruvaruron 13th to oppose the renaming of the street. He said, “if such an uprising shows strength, the party will carry out its future protests. He said at short notice; people gathered in large numbers to show their anger over the renaming of a car street. This Tiruvarur model protests against the government would be held with vigour. DMK was claiming none could shake the Cauvery delta region all these years.
Now they are scared”. The massive gathering at DMK bastion and native place of Karunanidhi has raised alarm bells in the ruling DMK, targeting the demolition of Hindu temples and interfering with centuries-old mutt rituals. Annamalai said the renaming of the street after Karunanidhi was a misadventure. In a tweet, he said that the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu should concentrate on bringing roads to villages in remote places instead of indulging in unnecessary things. The BJP’s effort helped the party to strengthen its pitch to mobilise public anger against the Hindu phobic policies of the DMK regime.
No mainline media covered the BJP protests. Seeing a surge of mass and anger, the DMK government announced deferring the renaming move.
Both the Dravidian parties have been vying to name projects, schemes, streets, and towns after their leaders like Congress. DMK and Congress are family-centred parties. In TN, one can see streets, roads, and projects after Karunanidhi.
CM Stalin led the government that came to power in May last, announced a magnified library with three elevated floors covered with translucent glass, free wifi, a cafeteria, fully air-conditioned, collection of 2.57 lakh books, CCTVs and all. The debt-ridden DMK has allocated Rs. 114 Crore for this purpose, and work is going on. On May 2nd this year, CM Stalin announced a portion of East Coast Road between Chennai and Mahabalipuram will be renamed “Muthamizh Arignar Kalignar Karunanidhi Road”. How many such renaming announcements and sticker pasting of Central government schemes would be staged in the remaining four years?
