Karunanidhi wants “West bank” of Yamuna river named Tiruvalluvar Marg

Chennai: Even before the Aurangzeb road controversy in Lutyens’ Delhi could die down, DMK president M. Karunanidhi has attempted to stoke a fresh controversy. Karunanidhi has sought Tamil Nadu government’s ‘support’ to name a six km stretch on the “West bank” of Yamuna river in Uttar Pradesh as Tiruvalluvar Marg as a tribute to the saint poet.

It was a long pending demand of the people there to name the road along the river as “Tiruvalluvar Marg” and plant tree saplings along the stretch so that the couplets could be written along with Hindi translation; Karunanidhi said citing a media report.

Furthermore, the DMK chief quoted one Chandra Mohan Bhargava as saying that it was the dream of founder and general secretary of Basha Sangh, late Krishna Chand Gowd, to erect a statue for Tiruvalluvar in Allahabad, but he died due to cancer before his dream got fulfilled.

The sangh had turned down the UP government’s offer to have the statue of the saint poet erected at Hindustan Academy and insisted on having it only at Triveni Sangam, Karunanidhi said, urging Tamil Nadu government to take steps in the matter.

Tamil Chair in Harvard: The DMK chief also sought TN government’s financial assistance to establish a Chair in Tamil in Harvard University. Two eminent doctors in the US, one of whom was a relative of DMK general secretary K. Anbazhagan, have jointly volunteered to contribute 1 million US $ and another five million US $ would have to be raised within two years at the university that had consented to establish a Chair in Tamil, Karunanidhi claimed.