"DMK betraying spirit of cooperative federalism": BJP's CR Kesavan lashes out at DMK govt for opposing Hindi introduction in state

Feb 18, 2025

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], February 18 : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader CR Kesvan on Tuesday took a jibe at the DMK government for opposing the introduction of Hindi in Tamil Nadu.
Kesavan accused the DMK government and said that by opposing a progressive NEP for "politically motivated reasons", the spirit of cooperative federalism was being "betrayed."
Speaking to ANI, Kesavan said, "By opposing a progressive national education policy for purely politically motivated reasons, the DMK model is betraying the spirit of cooperative federalism."
Further, he said that the NEP policy strengthened cooperative federalism by ensuring foremost priority to the mother tongue, further stating that the DMK's claim of imposition of Hindi was a blatant lie and outright falsehood.
"Prime Minister Modi's visionary national education policy of 2020 strengthens cooperative federalism by ensuring foremost priority and importance to our mother tongues... DMK's bogus claim that there is imposition of Hindi is a blatant lie and an outright falsehood. For many decades, we have seen the DMK model of governance. They try to peddle divisive political propaganda on the language issue for pure political profit. Similarly, now the DMK is trying to manufacture a fake fault line of north-south narrative and a fake narrative and also maliciously trying to mislead, misinform, instil fear in the people with regard to the national language...." he stated.
Kesavan also stated that DMK was trying to mislead people.
"So the truth is very clearly there for the people to see and how the DMK is trying to mislead them. Also about 56 lakh students in private schools, majority of them are following the three language policies...Why should they not benefit from the three-language policy that the private schools are giving to other students? These are the questions that the DMK should answer regarding the three-language policy.... The DMK should stop the regressive politics with language and you know, try to take the interests of the people and the students first, otherwise these students will become the youth of the future will teach a fitting lesson to the DMK in the coming days...." he further said.
This comes in after the Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader Udhayanidhi Stalin on Monday hit out at the BJP-led Union government, which he alleged was attempting a Hindi imposition on the Southern state.
"The Union Government has not allotted funds to us in the union budget and even Tamil Nadu's name is not there in the budget. After the cyclonic disaster happened in Tamil Nadu, we asked for funds from the central government to release funds, but they still have not allotted it; only SDRF funds were given to us. Tamil Nadu people are watching their actions and when the time comes, they will reply to them," Stalin said.