Social media has a way of making your chickens come home to roo-st, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has learnt like many other politicians before her.
Sitharaman had on Thursday night accused Tamil Nadu’s DMK government of “secessionist sentiments” for its use of the Tamil alphabet “roo” as the symbol for the rupee instead of the official ₹ in a promotional logo for the state budget.
However, X users soon pulled out eight-year-old tweets in which the minister had used the Tamil symbol for the rupee. The ₹ symbol was adopted in 2010.
“All elected representatives and authorities are sworn under the Constitution to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of our nation,” Sitharaman wrote on Thursday.
“Removing a national symbol like ‘₹’ from the State Budget documents goes against that very oath, weakening the commitment to national unity. This is more than mere symbolism — it signals a dangerous mindset that weakens Indian unity and promotes secessionist sentiments under the pretence ofregional pride.”
Md Zubair, co-founder of the fact-check website AltNews, replied to her with a screenshot of her tweets, written in Tamil, on the GST in 2017 in which she used the “roo” as the symbol for the Indian currency.
In the printed version of Tamil Nadu’s budget speech on Friday, “Rs.” has been used in the English version and “roobai” — the Tamil word for rupee — in the Tamil version.
In his X post in English on the budget on Thursday evening, Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin had used the ₹ symbol.
While Stalin gave no reason for using the “roo” symbol in the promotional logo, a senior journalist in Chennai told this newspaper that the state government’s PR machinery had encouraged reporters to “spin” it as a “Hindi imposition” story.
After Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai condemned Stalin for the “roo” in the logo, DMK and government functionaries gave bytes to news channels saying this was a rejection of the Devanagari script, from which the ₹ symbol is derived.
A Congress MP from the state said: “Annamalai spends so much on his PR machinery, so anyone who counters him automatically gets publicity.”
Social media was abuzz with Tamil Nadu finance minister Thangam Thennarasu’s statement from last year that for every rupee his state gives the Centre, it receives only 29 paise back.
In his budget speech on Friday, Thennarasu said: “When seen in comparison to our contribution of 9 per cent to the nation’s economy and 6 per cent of the country’s population, the 4 per cent share in central taxes is a gross injustice to the state.”
The BJP and the AIADMK walked out, alleging a liquor scam in Tamil Nadu.