AIADMK chief Palaniswami kicks up a new row, alleges DMK government of misusing temple funds

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday alleged the MK Stalin-led DMK government of misusing temple funds in the name of funding educational institutions run by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) department. “It is a planned conspiracy,” Palainswami alleged while addressing a gathering in Coimbatore.

Questioning the DMK government’s motive behind using HR and CE funds to run educational institutions, he asked, “Doesn’t the government have money to build colleges? I don’t want to say this, but you understand yourself. Their eyes get excited to see temples and decide to build colleges with the money there.”

Alleging that the government deliberately poked itself into the HR and CE funds to run the educational institutions, he said that this cannot be tolerated. “Good people like you donate money for the development of the temple. But they are using that money to build colleges.” Calling it a move to undermine the temple funds, Palaniswami alleged that it was a 'conspiracy'. He also clarified that he was not against education and the government running education institutions.

However, Palaniswami’s remarks have snowballed into a new controversy in the state where the HR and CE department runs 56 educational institutions, including arts and science colleges, CBSE, matriculation schools, Veda Patashalas and archaic training schools. In fact, the BJP and the RSS in Tamil Nadu have long been opposing the DMK government’s moves to bring in non-Brahmin archakas and stop the RSS from having shakhas in temples. Incidentally, out of the 2200 shakhas planned by the RSS in the Tamil Nadu temples, only 600 could be conducted until 2021, and the DMK government had ensured that all the Hindutva organisations inside the temples in Kanyakumari and Coimbatore, where the RSS has its infrastructure, were sent out.

India