Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin defended the state’s decision to use the Tamil letter for ‘ru’ in place of the official rupee symbol in its budget for 2025-26, pointing out that Nirmala Sitharaman herself had previously used Tamil letter ‘Ru’ (rubai in Tamil) instead of ‘Re’ in English. Interestingly, Nirmala Sitharaman herself has used instead of in English.
To demonstrate our unwavering stance on the language issue, we introduced the Tamil Ru symbol Stalin said. He criticised those opposing Tamil for turning the move into “a major controversy.” Stalin said that despite making “hundreds of requests to the Union Finance Minister for funds for salaries and education,” the state had received no response.
This comes after Sitharaman lashed out at the DMK government’s move, saying it “promoted secessionist sentiments under the pretence of regional pride”. In her post on X, the Finance Minister stated that replacing the rupee symbol pointed to a dangerous mindset and it was an unavoidable example of language and regional chauvinism.
To ensure the widespread development of Tamil Nadu to benefit all sections of society…” he wrote, using the hashtags ‘Dravidian Model’ and ‘TNBudget2025.’ The budget logo was missing the official rupee symbol, which is inspired by the Hindi letter for ‘R.’ Tamil Nadu had used the rupee symbol in its logos. The 2023-24 budget prominently featured the symbol, designed by a professor at IIT-Guwahati who is the son of a DMK leader.
