Chennai | Intensifying the language tussle with the Centre, the Tamil Nadu government on Thursday replaced the Devanagari rupee symbol with a Tamil letter in its logo for the budget 2025-26, in an unprecedented move signalling its unrelenting stance against the three-language formula under the NEP.

The move comes amidst a political firestorm over the issue after the Tamil Nadu government rejected the National Education Policy with Chief Minister M K Stalin accusing the Central government of trying to impose Hindi in the state under it and claimed that NEP was a "saffron policy" aimed at promoting and developing Hindi and not the nation.

The DMK has also asserted that Tamil Nadu would not tolerate 'Hindi colonialism' replacing British colonialism, while the Union government has accused the state government of being "dishonest" and "ruining the future of the students" in the state for politics.

The logo for the budget, released by the government on Thursday, carried 'ru', the first letter of the Tamil word 'Rubaai', which denotes the Indian currency in the vernacular language. Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu is scheduled to table the budget on Friday.

The logo also had the caption "everything for all", indicating the ruling DMK's assurance of an inclusive governance model.

The symbol change triggered a political slugfest, with the BJP leaders attacking the DMK, and the ruling party members asking if any rule barred such a depiction. DMK MLA Ezhilan Naganathan justified the move and said there was nothing wrong with using the mother tongue.

Slamming the Stalin government's move, BJP TN chief K Annamalai asked the chief minister how stupid he could be to do it.

"The DMK Government's State Budget for 2025-26 replaces the Rupee Symbol designed by a Tamilian, which was adopted by the whole of Bharat and incorporated into our Currency. Thiru Udhay Kumar, who designed the symbol, is the son of a former DMK MLA. How stupid can you become, Thiru @mkstalin?" he said in a social media post.

He also shared the logo of the 2024-25 TN budget that had the Devanagari symbol.

Responding to Annamalai's criticism, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai said no law "opposed or stopped using Ru in Tamil."

"Then why such anger," he asked in a post on X.

Senior BJP leader and former state unit chief Tamilisai Soundararajan also attacked the DMK.

"We feel very sorry for the attitude of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister (Stalin) and the Tamil Nadu government," she told PTI Videos."

It is "stupidity", like Annamalai mentioned, she said. She also asked why the change was made after so long and if they have "become Tamil now."

"They are against national integrity, national unity," she charged.

Hitting back at the BJP, Ezhilan said: "Using the mother tongue for all purposes is the theme of any Union Government principles that they have set. So, it is falling on those lines."

"It is very clear that we had a Tamil transcript of the Budget, and for that, Tamil 'Ru' for Rupee has been used. So, we are using the mother tongue for official purposes, which is mandatory everywhere," he told reporters.

BJP state vice president Narayanan Thirupathy claimed that Stalin has proved that he would "stoop down" to any level to hide the "failures" of his government in the last four years.

"It is not only laughable but also childish and immature to do this and people would laugh at this silly attitude. It’s time people say goodbye to @arivalayam. It is interesting to note that the ‘₹’ symbol was designed in 2010 by a Thamizhan and that, too, a son of former @arivalayam during the UPA rule in which @arivalayam was also a part," Narayanan said in a post on X.

S G Suryah, BJP state secretary, said the Rupee symbol was not designed and adapted by the BJP but by Congress and the DMK-led UPA regime.

"The DMK should stop sowing the seeds of separatism in the minds of the people of Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu government backtracked from PM-SHRI Schools after giving the initial nod to implement it," he said.

The DMK has argued that the Centre wants to 'impose' the north Indian language on Tamil Nadu through the implementation of the 3-language formula in the NEP and asserted that its government in the state will not follow the 3-language formula but only stick to its decades-old 2-language policy of Tamil and English.

The three-language formula in NEP 2020 recommends that students learn three languages, at least two of which must be native to India. It has not specifically mentioned Hindi. This formula applies to both government and private schools, giving states the flexibility to choose languages without any imposition.

According to a government portal, the rupee symbol is an amalgam of Devanagari "Ra" and the Roman Capital "R" with two parallel horizontal stripes running at the top representing the national flag and also the "equal to" sign.

"The Indian Rupee sign was adopted by the Government of India on 15th July, 2010," it said.

Meanwhile, IIT Guwahati Professor D Udaya Kumar, who had designed the Indian rupee symbol, on Thursday refused to be drawn into the controversy over language and said it is a mere coincidence that his father was a DMK MLA.