Old docus return to ‘prove facts’ on ex-CM’s AC usage
A social media post shared by Karunanidhi on Kamarajar’s birth anniversary on July 15, 2013, which has been doing the rounds since morning, has documented Kamarajar’s AC use.
Kamarajar and Karunanidhi
CHENNAI: A few leaders of the state Congress might have gone over the board on the Kamarajar Air Conditioner issue, which has threatened to sour their ties with the ruling DMK. Anecdotal references made by former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and even a senior Congress leader vindicated the statement of Tiruchi Siva that the deceased Congress stalwart had difficulty living without air conditioning in the final years of his life.
A social media post shared by Karunanidhi on Kamarajar’s birth anniversary on July 15, 2013, which has been doing the rounds since morning, has documented Kamarajar’s AC use. “He (Kamarajar) undertook intense campaigns after the DMK returned to power. His private secretary said that he could not sleep without AC due to health conditions. Hence, they requested me to arrange air conditioning facilities in government bungalows. I issued immediate orders to officers to provide AC facilities in all travellers bungalows they wanted. I told the officers that though he is not in power, he made way for our ascension and guided us to power. Hence, do not be slack on it,” Karunanidhi had stated in the decade-old social media post.
Similarly, Congress media wing secretary A Gopanna, in his media article written as a tribute to the Congress legend in 2019, also documented the AC habit of Kamarajar. Narrating the circumstances of his death, Gopanna, in the article, reportedly said that Kamarajar sweated profusely despite being in AC room at his home in the city.
The issue has also fuelled a debate on social media over whether the contemporary Congressmen were right in outraging over what appeared to be a factual statement, more so about as simple an issue as use of air conditioning by a former CM who had once helmed the AICC and roamed around on his Chevrolet car in the middle of the previous century.
But, one cannot blame the contemporary Congressmen for doubting the veracity of Siva’s claims about a dying Kamarajar solely trusting then Chief Minister Karunanidhi to save democracy given the political acrimony that prevailed between the DMK and Congress in the decade prior. Even so, it must also be admitted that the Congress was divided as INC (Organisation) Kamarajar was a part of, and INC (Requisitionists) led by Indira Gandhi during the time of his demise in October 1975.
