DMK President M K Stalin on Friday lashed out at what he called the Centre's "Hindi dominance sentiment" after two MPs from Tamil Nadu said they received official communications from Union Ministers in that language.
On his Twitter handle, Stalin tagged the posts of his party's Rajya Sabha member P Wilson and that of CPI (M) Lok Sabha member Su Venkatesan, where they said they received replies from Home Minister Amit Shah and his colleague Nityanand Rai, respectively, in Hindi on different issues.
"Central Ministries that reply in Hindi to Tamil Nadu MPs Wilson and Venkatesan; responded in English after being condemned," he said. He wondered if the Official Languages Act was being followed. "I condemn this Hindi dominance sentiment of the BJP government," Stalin added.
In his tweet, Wilson said when Stalin had asked all DMK MPs to write to Shah on the 7.5 per cent quota for government school students in medical education, "Honble Minister acknowledged my letter in Hindhi which I was unable to read and understand."
"At my request, the Hon'ble Home Minister sent me his reply in English. I therefore request Hon'ble Parliamentary affairs minister @JoshiPralhad to inform all concerned to communicate to us in Tamil or English in future," he said. Venkatesan, CPI (M) MP from Madurai, said MoS (Home) Rai had written to him in Hindi while replying to a communication.
The language issue has been raised by the DMK several times in recent months with the Dravidian party accusing the Centre of seeking to impose Hindi. Earlier, DMK MP Kanimozhi had accused a CISF personnel at the airport here of mocking her for not knowing Hindi.
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