Chennai, July 21: The Supreme Court is yet to have its say. But the DMK government can’t wait for it to honour Tamil cinema’s “greatest icon”.

A statue of Sivaji Ganesan was unveiled this evening amid fanfare by chief minister M. Karunanidhi to mark the actor’s fifth death anniversary.

Ganesan: Tribute in bronze

The majestic bronze statue, erected near Marina beach, has been in the eye of a storm with a public litigation alleging that it would not only obstruct traffic on an arterial road but would also obscure the statue of Mahatma Gandhi that stands diagonally opposite.

The PIL, filed by a freedom fighter from Chennai, also argued that the statue could pose a hindrance to the Republic Day parade, which is held on a stretch of the beach.

After a week-long legal battle, the state government tasted victory, albeit temporary, when Madras High Court did not restrain it from unveiling the statue.

However, the first bench of Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justice D. Murugesan said: “All actions taken by the government hereafter will be necessarily subject to the orders of the Supreme Court.”

Today, neither the monsoon nor the legal clouds stood in the way of the Karunanidhi government, as the chief minister unveiled the statue. Hundreds of Ganesan’s fans, top filmstars like Kamal Hassan, Rajnikanth, Ganesan’s sons Prabhu and Ram Kumar, and politicians cheered. A collage of clips from Ganesan’s movies was also screened.

Born Villupuram Chinniah Pillai Ganesan, the thespian earned the name Sivaji when he played the role of the Maratha warrior in the late DMK leader Annadurai’s hit Tamil play Sivaji Kanda Indhu Rajyam.

Ganesan entered the political scene as a camp follower of the Dravidian movement. He later joined the Congress.

But the superstar missed the political bus in the early 1960s. That was when another popular matinee idol, the late MGR, joined the DMK and stole the march over him.

Karunanidhi ? a popular scriptwriter of yesteryears who had penned many a film for Ganesan ? recalled the special relationship he shared with the late actor. He had written the script for Ganesan’s debut film, Parasakthi, in 1952, which won him instant stardom.

There was no turning back after that. Ganesan acted in over 300 films in his career spanning over 50 years.

Along with eulogising the idol, the DMK also used the occasion to criticise its rival. The party mouthpiece, Murasoli, today pointed out how repeated appeals to the previous Jayalalithaa government to build a statue of Ganesan “had fallen on deaf ears”.