Keeping up with the trend of building temples in honour of personalities, a group of AIADMK members from Coimbatore has installed a shrine for Tamil Nadu’s former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
The temple, located inside the Yoga Centre compound in Ganesapuram in Coimbatore, has shrines of Hindu Gods Anjaneya, Kalabhairava etc. However, it is the shrine of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa that has caught the attention of many.
The statue, carved out of a single stone weighing around eight tonnes, has Jayalalithaa’s face, a spear, a bell and the two leaves symbol embossed on one side of the stone. Her birth and death years have also been embossed on the same side, below her face. The eight-tonne rock has deities Kalabhairavar, Anjaneyar and the symbol of 12 Tamil rasis carved on its other sides.
Dayala Kumar, an AIADMK worker in Coimbatore says that the temple is a tribute to the former chief minister. “We have built a temple for her in honour of her service to the people in this area. She had sacrificed her lifetime for us and she is considered as a God who can be seen,” he said.
Former councillor Venugopal said that the shrine has been installed to honour Jayalalithaa since she had undertaken many welfare schemes in Ganesapuram locality when she was in power. The temple has been built at a cost of Rs 5 lakh, he added. “This temple has been built as a gesture of thanks to Amma, who helped in giving the people in this area basic amenities. Poojas are being done for Amma twice every day,’ he said.
An AIADMK cadre, Rajendiran, said that every day, poojas are being done for Jayalalithaa’s statue also in this temple. The temple was inaugurated a few days ago by the Rural Administration Minister of Tamil Nadu and the Thondamuthur MLA SP Velumani.
This is not the first time a temple is being built in memory of the former chief minister. Days after her death in 2016, an AIADMK councillor from Thanjavur built a temple there and filled it with pictures from Jayalalithaa’s life.
Source: The News Minute