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Updated: Oct 17, 2019 00:05 IST

Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and the Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute, a deemed university in Chennai have come under fire from the opposition after the latter announced that it will confer an honorary doctorate on him.

The Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute has announced it will confer a Doctor of Letters (D. Litt) honor on the CM at an event to be held at its campus in Maduravoyal near Chennai on October 20.

Palaniswami will join the league of late Tamil leaders M Karunanidhi, MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa who were given honorary doctorates from deemed universities in the state.

The reasons why the decision has come in for criticism is two-fold. The first the institution is owned by AC Shanmugam, who is the president for New Justice Party (NJP) - which is traditionally seen as representing the interests of OBC Mudhaliyar community. NJP is an ally of AIADMK and Shanmugam had contested the Vellore Lok Sabha set last summer under the AIADMK’s Two Leaves symbol and lost narrowly to his DMK opponent. Second, the CM has only studied upto 12th standard according to his election affidavit.

Along with CM, G Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO, Dr S Rajasabapathy, Chairman and Director, Ganga Hospital South Indian Music Composer Harris Jayaraj, and Shobana Chandrakumar, a noted classical dancer and actor are also to be conferred with doctorates by the institute.

While EPS, Harris Jayaraj and Shobana have been selected for Doctor of Letters, Satheesh Reddy Rajasabathy will be conferred the doctorate under Doctor of Science category, the invitation reads.

Filmmaker S Shankar, actors C Vijay and Vijaya Kumar, tennis star Saniya Mirza, former Medical Council of India chairman Ketan Desai are some of the well known people who have received the doctorate from Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute in the past.

The late M Karunanidhi had received four honorary doctorate degrees and his political opponent, the AIADMK founder and former CM MG Ramachandran had received two doctorates. MGR’s successor Jayalalithaa had also received five doctorates in the state from universities. DMK President MK Stalin was conferred with the doctorate by Anna University in 2007.

Reacting to the move to confer this honor on the CM, DMK said that institutions should be careful about to whom they are conferring doctorates.

“Our leader Karunanidhi had written hundreds of books. His books are kept for research in Universities. He had also written screenplays for movies. MGR and Jayalalithaa also had contributed to the cinema industry. But EPS who is struggling to speak a few lines in Tamil is not deserving of a doctorate. In a function, he wrongly said that Sekkizhar wrote Tamil epic Kambarayanam. In a recent public meeting, he found it hard to say a Tamil word ‘Madhasarbinmai’ (Secularism).

When a reporter asked him about his reading habits, he was not in a position to mention even one book he had read recently. So, institutions should consider the quality of persons before conferring a doctorate,” said Maa Subramaniam, former Chennai Corporation Mayor and DMK MLA.

TTV Dhinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) also concurred with the DMK lawmaker’s comment.

“Karunanidhi and our leaders MGR and Jayalalithaa had served the Tamil society through social service, politics and cinema. However, EPS has failed to prove himself even as an able administrator. He has not penned any book. He has not even completed a college degree. He is ineligible to get the doctorate,” said CR Saraswathi, Organising Secretary AMMK.

However, AIADMK spokesperson Sivasankari defended the university’s decision to award EPS a doctorate degree. “The CM has been working as a people’s representative since 1989. As a Highways Minister since 2011, he played a crucial role to provide the best road infrastructure to the state. After his elevation as the CM, EPS has been working hard for the state’s development and is eminently deserving of the honor,” the AIADMK leader said.