Chennai
The Tamil Nadu BJP on Sunday strongly hit back at Chief Minister M.K. Stalin for criticising the Centre over naming national schemes in Hindi. Party spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy said Stalin’s remarks showed “ignorance and arrogance,” asserting that Hindi is India’s official language.
Responding to Stalin’s question — “What kind of arrogance is it to name all major schemes in Hindi and Sanskrit?” — Thirupathy said, “If you ask this without knowing that Hindi is the nation’s official language, it shows ignorance. If you know it and still ask, that’s arrogance.”
On Stalin’s comment about corruption in the BJP alliance, Thirupathy replied that DMK’s own minister, V. Senthil Balaji, accused in a cash-for-jobs scam, remains in the ruling party. “The Chief Minister should first ask himself this question,” he added.
Thirupathy also accused the DMK of “vote theft” and “booth capturing” during elections, claiming that the party opposed the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) because it would expose such practices. He alleged that DMK used “duplicate votes, cash-for-votes, and violence” to stay in power.
Defending the BJP’s stance on religion, Thirupathy accused Stalin and his deputy of “mocking the majority community’s beliefs” for minority appeasement. He further dismissed Stalin’s criticism of the BJP over the Keeladi archaeological findings, saying the Chief Minister “lacked understanding” of archaeological methods.
Thirupathy ended his statement by mocking Stalin’s remark about “WhatsApp university,” saying it was the DMK that spread false propaganda about failed investments like Foxconn.