HC grants burial for Karunanidhi at Marina Beach

The Madras High Court has granted in an order that DMK leader and five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Muthuvel Karunanidhi may be buried at Chennai's Marina Beach, where other Dravidian party leaders DMK founder Annadurai, AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran and his successor J Jayalalithaa have been laid to rest. 

The DMK approached the Madras High Court on Tuesday night. The hearing went on till midnight when the court adjourned the case directing the state government and Chennai Corporation to file their affidavits on Wednesday.

The AIADMK government late on Tuesday rejected the request and asked the DMK to bury Karunanidhi on Sardar Patel Road which is home to memorials dedicated to Rajaji (C. Rajagopalachari) and K. Kamaraj.

Earlier all the petitioners who had filed a case against the memorial for AIADMK's late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said they are withdrawing their petitions and the court dismissed their pleas.

On Wednesday the government counsel argued the DMK party is politicising the burial of Karunanidhi.

The court asked the government counsel to explain the legal issues in allotting space at Marina Beach as mentioned in the statement issued by the government on Tuesday.

The DMK counsel argued that the government is citing minor issues for rejecting the party's request for space at Marina Beach for burying Karunanidhi.

The DMK said Karunanidhi is an ardent follower of party founder and Annadurai. Since AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran was also a follower of Annadurai he was buried near the latter's memorial.

According to DMK, the ideologies of late Congress leaders like Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj are different from that of what was followed by Dravidian leaders like Annadurai and Karunanidhi.

Hence it will not be appropriate to bury Karunanidhi at the site offered by the state government.

The DMK also argued that the Chennai Corporation has announced the Annadurai memorial Beach as a burial site. - IANS with TWL Bureau