DMK goes for ‘timed’ flag hoist at party headquarters

The timing (8am) of the event was significant, for it was due to time or alleged failure of the government to keep time a few years ago, that the DMK had event started hoisting the flag on Arivalayam. 

Apparently, the AIADMK government in 2011 had delayed the flag hoisting by about two hours as the time was inauspicious that year prompting the DMK to hoist the flag at their party headquarters at 8 am.

“We have only been doing it since 2011. Usually, the unfurling of the national flag happens at 8 am at Red Fort and Fort St George, but the protocol was violated by the then rulers in Tamil Nadu in 2011. Hence, our leader asked us to hoist the flag. We have been following the practice since then,” explained Bharati, who has done it twice thus far. 

Pertinently, neither DMK president M Karunanidhi nor working president M K Stalin had hoisted the tri colour thus far. Denying that their leader’s abstention was not related to their ideological mentor Periyar’s disinterest in celebrating August 15, Bharati said that their party founder C N Annadurai had embraced Independence Day and they were following the same. 

Meanwhile, Stalin on Tuesday issued a ‘I’ day greeting message in which he appealed to people to set aside, caste, religion, ethnic and linguistic differences and strive to make India a global superpower.