Deepam row: Tamil Nadu CM defends govt stance, after PM’s visit to Tirupparankundram temple

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has defended the state government’s stand on the Tirupparankundram temple lamp lighting row and said personal faith should not bow down to politics.

His remarks came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Arulmighu Subrahmanya Swamy temple in Tirupparankundran and offered prayers on Sunday.

In a video message released on March 1, when he turned 73, Stalin said his government defended its position on the Karthigai Deepam lamp lighting row on a stone pillar on Tirupparankundram hill, and said he made a choice to safeguard the tradition of the temple as a CM and not as a religious leader.

“I firmly believe that personal faith should not bow down to politics. Rationality need not be at loggerheads with faith, both are faces of the same society,” he said in the message and claimed that friendship between rationalist leader “Periyar” Ramasamy and Adigalar was proof.

Stalin was apparently referring to Kundrakudi Ponnambala Adigalar, who recently praised the DMK government for protecting temples and fostering a positive environment for spiritualism and education.

After visiting the temple on Sunday evening, the Prime Minister, who addressed a massive rally of the NDA in Madurai, targeted the ruling DMK dispensation, alleging “insensitivity” over people’s sentiments on the Tirupparankundram lamp lighting issue and said the devotees would eventually win.

In the row over the lighting of the lamp on Deepathoon (stone pillar) atop the Tirupparankundram hill near a Dargah, the Madras High Court permitted the Hindus to light the lamp on Karthigai Deepam festival.

But, the local authorities had disallowed claiming the move would lead to conflict between people of two faiths.

“We may have different beliefs, but we live in the same land, speak the same language, walk towards the same future. That is the throbbing pulse of the Dravidian movement,” Stalin, who is the president of the DMK, said in the message released by his party.

He emphasised that his goal in politics was to unite everyone and reiterated his government’s stance on upholding the dual language policy of Tamil and English.