CHENNAI: Thanking the Central government for conferring Bharat Ratna on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malviya, DMK president M Karunanidhi on Thursday renewed his appeal to President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accord the country’s top honour to Dravidian leaders Periyar EV Ramasamy, and founder of DMK and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, CN Annadurai. In this connection, Karunanidhi recalled that he had made the request in a letter dated August 24.
PMK founder S Ramadoss too hailed the decision of the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna on Vajpayee. While recalling the services of the former Prime Minister, Ramadoss also opposed the Centre’s decision to promulgate Ordinances on important issues like increasing foreign direct investment ceiling in insurance sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent, auction of coal blocks etc.,