Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK) founder M Karunanidhi should be awarded the nation’s highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna, demanded DMK lawmaker Tiruchi Shiva in the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
DMK supremo and five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi passed away in Chennai on August 7.
Calling the DMK patriarch as “unparalleled”, Shiva dubbed him as the “tallest leader of the country and a Dravidian stalwart”.
DMK said that conferring the award will be a ‘real tribute’ to the DMK supremo’s “outstanding and exemplary work”.
DMK MP Shiva raised the issue during the Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha. He said, “He(Karunanidhi) lived five years short of a century, out of which he contributed 80 years to the public life, fighting for the cause of the downtrodden, backward and the suppressed people.”
“He was an outstanding orator, a prolific writer, a novelist, a short-story writer, a philosopher, a philanthropist and also a dramatist. He was an actor and also wrote scripts for 80 movies,” added DMK lawmaker.
Praising the deceased leader, Shiva said, “His life cannot be described in words. He was a staunch and untiring soldier. He was fighting till his last breath, for social justice, secularism, state autonomy and self-respect.”
Apprising his party’s demand, DMK MP said, “I would urge the government to confer upon him posthumously the Bharat Ratna, which will be a real tribute to his outstanding and exemplary work which had left an indelible mark in the annals of history.”
Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President Su Thirunavukkarasar also supported the demand to confer Bharat Ratna on the departed DMK patriarch, reported The Indian Express.
After fighting a brief illness Karunanidhi died at the age of 94 on August 7. He was buried at the Marina beach where other prominent leaders are also buried.