Stalin, EPS See Eye To Eye, A Little Bit
The protests were organized in front of the façade by DMK party volunteers who blackened the characters of the Hindi word and raised slogans against the government.
Chennai: Surprisingly Chief Minister M K Stalin and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami saw eye to eye, to some extent, on the controversy that have erupted over the naming of the entrance arch at the Tiruchi Divisional Railway manager’s office as ‘Kartavya Dwar’ in Hindi and then just transliterating the name in English and Tamil with no translation in those languages.
Stalin put out a hard hitting message on social media against the Hindi name for the façade of the railway office calling it as yet another instance of Hindi imposition in Tamil Nadu, while Palaniswami urged the Union Government to give it a Tamil name but informed that he had received information on the railway authorities deciding the change the name giving due respects to the protests against it.
The protests were organized in front of the façade by DMK party volunteers who blackened the characters of the Hindi word and raised slogans against the government. A few hours after Stalin put out the post in X with the hashtag #StopHindiImposition, Palaniswami posted his message informing about the decision to change it and saying that the people of Tamil Nadu knew well about the love the Union government, led by Narendra Modi, had for the Tamil language.
The message of Stalin said that the BJP was crossing all limits in its fanaticism on imposing Hindi and described the transliteration of the Hindi word into Tamil and English as a cheap tactic adopted by the government.
It also pointed to the naming of the EPFO offices as Bhavishya Nidhi Bhavan, the renaming of the Criminal Code of Conduct and Indian Penal Code in Hindi and calling the Union Water Resources department as Jal Shakti and said the arrogance of the BJP had touched its peak that it was provoking the Tamil people by testing their self-respect.
If the BJP government failed to stop imposing Hindi through such a naming process, it would have to face the heat of the Tamil people, Stalin warned.
Several other political leaders, too, joined the issue with former BJP State president Tamilisai Soundraraj urging Union Minister Aswini Vaishnaw to instruct the Southern Railway general manager to place a proper Tamil language board, by blaming the officials for the present board. CPI MP Su Venkatesan said the only duty of the BJP government was imposing Hindi, referring to the term Kartavya Dwar which means gateway of duty.
Leader of a PMK faction and an ally of the BJP, Anbumani Ramadoss, too wanted the name to be changed. He said that the Union Government should respect the sentiments of States while naming government offices.