"Betrays essence in spirit of cooperative federalism": BJP Spokesperon CR Kesavan on TN CM's letter on Hindi imposition

New Delhi [India], October 18 (ANI): BJP National Spokesperson CR Kesavan on Friday lashed out at Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin over his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the "Hindi language-orientated events in non-Hindi speaking states could be avoided."
Kesavan said that Stalin's letter to the PM has betrayed the essence of the "spirit of cooperative federalism" envisioned by Dr BR Ambdekar and other founders of the Constitution.
He further claimed that the DMK had a long history of using language as a "partisan political tool" and that PM Modi had committed to preserving the linguistic heritage and promoting linguistic diversity.
"While Prime Minister Narendra Modi regards our remarkable linguistic diversity as our civilisational strength, the DMK has a long history of using language as a partisan political tool. PM Modi has steadfastly committed to preserving our great linguistic heritage and promoting our remarkable linguistic diversity. But the CM's letter to the PM today betrays the very essence in spirit of cooperative federalism as envisioned by Dr BR Ambedkar and the other founders of our scared constitution," the BJP Spokesperson said.
Tamil Nadu state BJP vice president Narayanan Thirupathy also slammed the Tamil Nadu CM and said, "Did Stalin raise the question when DMK was part of the UPA from 2004 to 2014. When all these years the same Hindi Pakwara happened during the DMK's rule with the Congress, what was Stalin doing?..."
This came following MK Stalin raised concerns over linguistic diversity and representation and strongly condemned the celebration of the Hindi Month valedictory function along with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Chennai Doordarshan in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasising that the Indian Constitution does not grant national language status to any language, and Hindi and English are only for official purposes.
He suggests avoiding Hindi language programs in non-Hindi-speaking states.
"It has been announced that the closing ceremony of the Hindi Month celebrations and Golden Jubilee celebrations of Chennai Television will be held this evening at Doordarshan Tamil in Chennai, and Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi will be the special guest. This blatant attempt to impose Hindi is strongly condemned. India has 122 languages spoken by a significant number of people and 1599 other languages. There is no justification for celebrating only one language when India is a diverse country. In a country where more than 1700 languages are spoken, especially in a state where the world's oldest language, Tamil, is spoken only in Hindi, it will affect the country's diversity. The central government should not be responsible for this," he wrote. (ANI)