Stop insisting on trilingual policy to allocate funds to Tamil Nadu, Ex-CM Panneerselvam tells Centre

Chennai: Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu O Panneerselvam on Monday urged the Centre to rescind its decision to allocate funds only when the three language policy was implemented in the state.

From the time a resolution was passed in the state legislative Assembly, piloted by former Chief Minister C N Annadurai on January 23, 1968, Tamil Nadu has been following two language policy of Tamil and English. AIADMK leaders and former Chief Ministers: M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa too endorsed this policy and strictly adhered to it, Panneerselvam said.

Since then, there has been no change in the status and Annadurai’s decision of removing Hindi from the education curriculum of schools in Tamil Nadu was still valid, the former Chief Minister said in a statement here.

"Against this background, the insistence of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan that only if a trilingual policy was followed as per the new National Education Policy (NEP), funds can be allocated to Tamil Nadu was unacceptable," Panneerselvam said.

"This is tantamount to imposing trilingual policy on Tamil Nadu. Therefore on behalf of the ADMK Workers’ Rights Retrieval Committee, I request the Central Government to reconsider the decision that funds will be allocated only if the three language policy is followed, and release the funds to Tamil Nadu immediately," Panneerselvam said.