Language dispute: Tamil Nadu drops rupee symbol from Budget logo

Escalating the language row between Tamil Nadu and the central government, the state on Thursday removed the official rupee symbol in Devanagari and replaced it with the Tamil letter “ru” from “rupai” for its Budget logo for 2025-26.

 

Chief Minister M K Stalin released the new logo on the X platform in a pre-Budget video posted with the caption: "Ensuring widespread development of Tamil Nadu to benefit all sections of society."

 

This comes at a time when the Centre and Tamil Nadu are at loggerheads over the three-language policy introduced by the BJP-led central government, which the DMK calls an imposition of Hindi on the Tamil public. The state had also opposed the National Education Policy (NEP), which advocates the three-language policy. The state Budget is scheduled to be presented on Friday.

 

Interestingly, the rupee symbol in Devanagari was designed by the son of a former DMK MLA. "Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam is an Indian academic and designer, son of a former DMK MLA, who designed the Indian rupee (₹) sign, which was accepted by Bharat. Chief Minister Stalin is insulting Tamilians by dropping the ₹ sign from the Tamil Nadu Budget 2025-26 document," BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya said on X. The symbol was designed by Dharmalingam in 2010.

 

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Stalin's protests against the delimitation exercise for determining Lok Sabha seats got support from Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. It is alleged that the move may reduce seats in southern states that have successfully implemented population control measures. "The Union government led by the BJP is conspiring against the southern states. This is not a delimitation but a 'limitation' for southern states. We won't accept this at any cost," Reddy said.

 

On Wednesday, Stalin had also received backing from Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah over the issue. “We condemn without hesitation all the actions of the central government that are against the interests of Karnataka, weaken democracy, and go against the federal principle of the Constitution," Siddaramaiah had said.

 

On Thursday, Tamil Nadu came out with its first-ever Economic Survey for the year 2024-25, which indicated that it is likely to maintain a growth rate of over 8 per cent. The state has been posting over 8 per cent growth since 2021-22.

 

"The Union government has not been cooperative in sharing financial resources that Tamil Nadu deserves, and has been limiting the state’s growth through policy compulsions like NEET, NEP 2020, and fiscal caps on borrowings, to name a few," J Jeyaranjan, executive vice-chairman of the State Planning Commission, said in his foreward. He added that despite multiple setbacks, including the Covid-19 pandemic and natural disasters such as cyclones and floods over the past three years, the state's economy remained strong.