Anti-Hindi agitation: CPI slams Annamalai’s ‘ignorance’
CHENNAI: Hitting out at the BJP state president K Annamalai for making ‘derogatory’ remarks against the anti-Hindi agitation in the state, CPI state secretary R Mutharasan on Sunday termed the saffron party leader as a blabbermouth and ignorant of the history of the country and Tamil Nadu or its language.
“The anti-Hindi agitation in 1965 is not an ordinary protest. When Hindi was imposed, the whole state rose against it. I took part as a school kid. Several people were killed in the protest. After that the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured that the Hindi won’t be imposed. I strongly condemn ‘arrogant’ Annamalai who does not know the state’s history. He is making derogatory remarks against the anti-Hindi protests,” Mutharasan told reporters after releasing his party’s election manifesto.
The CPI slammed the Sangh Parivar that even though there are 22 scheduled languages in the country, the RSS, the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, recognises only two languages - Sanskrit and Hindi. “When the Prime Minister comes to the state, he speaks a lot about the Tamil language. When he allocates funds, he will reduce the funds for Tamil while increasing for Hindi and Sanskrit,” he said.
Taking a dig at Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Mutharasan said that she had taken a wise decision not to contest the Lok Sabha polls from the state as she knows well her party will not win any seat here. “But, sadly, Tamilisai Soundararajan has resigned her Governor post to contest in the elections,” he said.
Asserting that democracy is under threat in the country if the BJP wins, he appealed to the people to vote out Narendra Modi’s government to save the country and secularism. He also criticised the BJP for misusing central agencies like IT to issue notice to political parties during the Lok Sabha polls.