Chennai: Just as the State government was preparing the ground for the unveiling of its last full-fledged annual budget of their present term in the Assembly, BJP State President, K Annamalai kicked up a controversy over the symbol for rupee used in the logo for the 2025-26 annual Budget that was made public on Thursday.
The Budget logo used the Tamil alphabet ‘Ru’ denoting rupee (or Rubai in Tamil) instead of the government authorized sign for rupee (₹) that had been in currency since 2010 after it was selected in a competition conducted by the Union Government for designers.
The winner D Udhaya Kumar, a designer, was then a student of IIT-Bombay, and his design of the symbol (₹) became the insignia representing the Indian rupee at the world level.
After winning the first prize in the competition that drew thousands of entries, Udhaya Kumar, along with his family members called on the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi at his residence. Udhaya Kumar’s father, N Dharmalingam, was a former DMK MLA from Rishivandiyam constituency.
Objecting to the State government neglecting that recognized insignia and putting the Tamil letter Ru in the logo, Annamalai put out a message on X, saying the DMK government had replaced the symbol designed by a Tamilian and adopted by the entire country.
When media persons quizzed State Planning Commission vice chairman, J Jeyaranjan, about the Budget having a different sign, when he released the State’s Economic Survey, he said that the approved sign for rupee was taken of the Devanagiri script that is used in the writing of Hindi and Sanskrit words.
Carrying an old photograph of Udhaya Kumar family meeting Karunanidhi in his X Page, Anamalai said ‘What the father endorsed, the son rejects. However, some X users saw in the government’s move a bid to prioritize Tamil, particularly in the context of the ongoing ‘language war’ declared by the State against the Union Government’s three-language policy.
The State Budget, for which the controversial logo had been designed, would be presented in the House by State Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu at 9.30 am on Thursday when the Assembly session begins. The agenda for the session will be finalized at the Business Advisory Committee that will meet during the day.
While the DMK leaders and workers would be looking forward to the Budget presentation with a hope of seeing many welfare schemes and populist projects being announced since this would be the last full-fledged Budget for the present government, the opposition parties are waiting to pounce on the government making several charges of alleged misrule and breakdown of law and order.
The government, on its part, has made elaborate arrangements for live telecast of the Budget presentation all over the State, in 936 venues. An official press release said 100 places had been identified for the purpose in Chennai alone, starting from Thiruvotiyur to Sholinganallur. Public places like malls and beaches would have the screening of the budget presentation from 9.30 am on LED screens and even the Agriculture Budget would be live telecast the next day on Saturday.
The next budget of the DMK government, to be presented in 2026, would only be an interim one as paty’s term would be over by May and there would be no scope for announcing new schemes.
Since the opposition was girding up loins to take on the government on various lapses like rape incidents, graft charges, the continuous raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the government-owned liquor dealing company TASMAC’s offices, the session would be a stormy.
The ED, in its X page, said search operations at various premises across many districts of Tamil Nadu were conducted on March 6 under the provisions of PMLA, 2002, for various offences related to TASMAC and its associated entities and persons. Various incriminating documents were recovered and seized, the ED claimed
