The DMK on Friday demanded the government to posthumously confer the highest civilian award,
Bharat Ratna, for its party patriarch M
Karunanidhi. Several members from the opposition bench supported this.
Raising the demand, party MP
Tiruchi Siva said the award will be a real tribute to the late Tamil Nadu leader's exemplary work and was the "tallest leader of the country and a Dravidian stalwart."
"He lived five years short of a century, out of which he contributed 80 years to the public life, fighting for the cause of the downtrodden, backward and the suppressed people...He was an outstanding orator, a prolific writer, a novelist, a short-story writer, a philosopher, a philanthropist and also a dramatist. He was an actor and also wrote scripts for 80 movies," Siva said
The lawmaker said Karunanidhi's life cannot be described in words. He was a staunch and untiring soldier. He was fighting till his last breath, for social justice, secularism, state autonomy and self respect, Siva said.
The MP highlighted some of the laws enacted during the Dravidian leader's tenure including equal rights for women in ancestral property, widows' rehabilitation,
slum clearance board and many other boards for unorganised sector and for transsexuals.
"He was the first one to abolish rickshaw which was pulled by men. That was a very radical and progressive achievement.
He said that no person should live in slums; slums should be removed; and in their place multi-storey buildings must come.
The term 'differently abled' was coined by him... He shook hands for relationship and at the same time never compromised in policies and never hesitated to raise voice for the rights," the DMK MP said.
M Karunanidhi
