Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's announcement that the Anna Centenary Library would be converted into a hospital showed the extent of anger in her mind against political adversaries, DMK president M. Karunanidhi said on Thursday.
It also showed that she was destroying symbols of Tamil culture one by one, he alleged.
Writing in his party organ, ‘Murasoli', Mr. Karunanidhi said the Rs. 172-crore library at Kotturpuram received wide acclaim, especially among students.
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“But when the Chief Minister, solely out of malice, insists that such a library will be converted into a hospital, one can understand the extent of animosity in her mind,” Mr. Karunanidhi added.
He said that in six months of her rule, Ms. Jayalalithaa had reversed several measures taken by his regime, and listed the abrogation of the uniform system of education, abandonment of the new Secretariat-cum-Assembly complex, shifting of the Classical Tamil Research Library named after ‘Paavendar' Bharathidasan, merging of the Anna Universities of Technology and the abolition of the suburban Police Commissionerate, among other decisions.
Mr. Karunanidhi recalled that various institutions and structures had been named by him after leaders belonging to other political parties, including M G Ramachandran and Kamaraj, as well as Dravidian leaders.
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“I didn't do all this for personal glory but only to preserve the memory of great leaders who had served society.”
In particular, he said, he derived great happiness in building the library in the name of DMK founder Anna (C.N. Annadurai) as an imposing institution dedicated to expanding the knowledge of Dravidian people.