Hindi row takes new turn as TN replaces

Tamil Nadu on Thursday replaced the rupee symbol (₹) with a Tamil alphabet (translated as Ru) for the logo of the state budget 2025-26, a symbolic move that triggered a political storm and ratcheted up the already simmering tensions between the state and the Centre over language.

- Divya Chandrababu

State finance minister Thangam Thennarasu is scheduled to table the budget on Friday. The state government had used the rupee symbol in last year's budget.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government released a 24-second video to announce the budget, which had a logo where the rupee symbol was replaced by the Tamil alphabet with a tagline "Ellorkkum Ellaam" (everything for everyone). "This budget is for all sections of the society," chief minister MK Stalin said on X, sharing the video -- the amplification suggesting that the state was taking its fight with the Centre to the next level.

Ru is the first letter of the Tamil word Rubaai, which denotes the Indian currency in the southern language.

The Indian rupee symbol was officially adopted in 2010 and was designed by D Udaya Kumar, a professor at IIT Guwahati, who combined the Devanagari letter and the Latin capital "R" with a horizontal stroke.

It is now widely used in financial and digital transactions.

The Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission executive vice-chairman J Jeyaranjan said the only reason the state government replaced the rupee symbol was that it did not want to use the Devanagari script. "We don't want to use Devanagari. That's all," he told news agency ANI.

The incident sparked a political controversy. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit out at the state government.