#HBDFatherOfCorruption vs #FatherOfModernTamilNadu: who is winning?

Twitter was on fire on the eve of late leader Kalaignar Karunanidhi’s birthday with both #HBDFatherOfCorruption and #FatherOfModernTamilNadu trending on twitter. However, as the clock struck 12, the former had already raced with netizens oozing out their creativity through memes. An ‘official’ logo was also released to commemorate the occasion. Many of them famously recalled the late former Chief Minister’s reply to the Sarkaria Commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Ranjit Singh Sarkaria who had attributed the term ‘scientific corruption’ synonymous with the DMK party and its leaders.

The judge enquiring about the Sugar Scandal had asked Karunanidhi about what happened to the 20000 sugar bags that contained sugar to which pat came the reply “They were eaten by ants.” The appalled judge then asked “what happened to the bags that contained the sugar then?” and Karunanidhi replied “They were eaten by termites”.

The DMK under Karunanidhi is guilty of several other corruption charges and failures. The party was part of the biggest ever corruption case in the history of India – 2G spectrum case. Karunanidhi in order to save his seat, went soft on the UPA government headed by its alliance partner Congress, by organizing lip service protests while thousands of Tamils in Sri Lanka were killed in the civil war in Sri Lanka. He is said to have undertaken the ‘fastest fast’ by starting the fast after breakfast and ending it before lunch.

Netizens have been churning out tweets and memes recalling these. As of 07:30 AM, #HBDFatherOfCorruption crossed more than 151K tweets while #FatherOfModernTamilNadu was trending with 108K tweets. Here is a look at some of them: