Hindi pamphlets seeking votes for DMK candidate crop up in Erode

Chennai: Having championed anti-Hindi imposition for decades, Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is now under attack from its opponents of “promoting” the language for vote bank politics.

At the core of the row is Hindi pamphlets distributed among the 10,000-strong Hindi-speaking community in Erode (east) seeking votes for the DMK candidate V C Chandrakumar in the February 5 by-elections.

The pamphlets bearing the pictures of Chief Minister M K Stalin, former Congress Presidents Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi, and deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin among others ask people to vote for the Rising Sun symbol of the DMK.

The pamphlets are being widely shared on various social media platforms with right-wing supporters baying for the DMK’s blood seeking to question its "double standards” on Hindi.

It is believed that the Hindi-speaking people in the constituency number around 10,000 and the pamphlets were to canvas for their votes. However, the DMK tried to wash its hands off the issue by saying that a businessman from Erode printed the pamphlets in his own capacity as a well-wisher of the DMK and distributed them among north Indians.

“The party has nothing to do with it,” Chandrakumar, the DMK candidate, said.

Naam Tamizhar Katchi, which is the prime opponent of the DMK in the by-election with AIADMK and BJP staying away from the polls, alleged that the DMK has sacrificed its long-held policy for votes.

Hindi is a sensitive and emotive issue in Tamil Nadu, which has witnessed two violent struggles against imposition of the language in 1938 and 1965 with the latter being supported by the DMK which used the agitation as a springboard to assume power in 1967.

DMK, under Stalin, while maintaining steadfast opposition to “imposition of Hindi” has in fact translated many of its key statements and reports against the Centre in the language in the “larger interests of the nation.” The party maintains that it was only against the imposition of Hindi, not the language.