Chennai:
Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today unveiled a life-size statue of late Chief Minister M Karunanidhi installed by the Government at Chennai’s Omandurar Government Estate along Anna Salai.
The 16-foot high bronze statue on a 14-foot pedestal has come in the same secretariat cum Tamil Nadu assembly complex that the five-time Chief Minister passionately built during his last tenure. His political arch-rival J Jayalalithaa, who became Chief Minister of the state later, had converted it into a super multi-speciality hospital and medical college.
The statue has five messages of Mr Karunanidhi engraved, including opposition to Hindi imposition and the creation of an oppression free society.
Interestingly, on the same road which was earlier called Mount Road, a statue for Mr Karunanidhi was installed in 1975 when he was alive. It was his mentor — rationalist leader and social reformer Periyar — who gave him that idea.
However, it was vandalised and removed in the year 1987 during the violence that erupted after the passing of his friend and political rival Chief Minister MG Ramachandran.
At the site of the statue were present Mr Karunanidhi’s second wife Rajathi Ammal, his MP daughter MK Kanimozhi, and other close family members.