Secretariat To Hospital To Secretariat – Chennai’s Tughlaqi Move?

The legislature is the place where politics rules in word and deed. But have you heard of politics about the very building in which the legislature is situated? This politics over the legislature building has been going on for years in Tamil Nadu where leaders have had various reasons for shifting the TN Assembly out of Fort St George, with its historic colonial links. Karunanidhi wanted to leave the old Assembly because it was too cramped, and he made a master plan of an alternative building. Jaya was told not to travel to Fort St George because a statue of Kannagi, of Tamil epic Silapathigaram fame, was on the way. She wanted to shift the legislature south, but the High Court busted her plan to take over Queen Mary’s College. The DMK is back in power, and Stalin has not dropped plans to restore his father’s pet project, which Jaya had converted into a multi-specialty hospital. The government is spending Rs 500 crore to upgrade the King Institute in Guindy so that the current Omandurar hospital can be converted back into the legislature. About Rs 1,000 crore has been spent so far in making the changes. But this is India of Tughlaq rule where shifting of the capital itself was not thought to be too extravagant or fanciful.