CHENNAI: NTK chief coordinator Seeman on Wednesday accused Finance Minister Marie Wilson of insulting the Tamil language while attempting to justify his difficulty in pronouncing Tamil words during the presentation of the Budget, even as the TVK leader issued an apology on the issue in the House on Wednesday.

Seeman said the minister had struggled to pronounce Tamil words clearly while reading the Budget and had also made errors while reading out figures. He said that when MLA Rajendran pointed out the mistakes during the discussion on the demands for grants and urged the minister to correct them, Wilson's response and body language reflected “arrogance”.

Seeman said accepting a mistake and taking steps to correct it was a sign of political maturity. He criticised the minister for refusing to correct himself and instead responding with what he described as the “arrogance of power”.

Questioning Wilson's remarks that he was born a Christian and that his faith had taught him love, which indirectly portrayed Tamil in a bad light, Seeman said the minister had every right to speak about his religious beliefs but had no right to speak in a manner that wrongly conveyed that Tamil did not teach love.

Seeman also pointed to the contributions of Christian missionaries and Tamil scholars such as GU Pope and Veeramamunivar to Tamil language and literature. He said their contributions demonstrated that Christianity and Tamil were not contradictory and that several Christian scholars had devoted themselves to the Tamil language.

Seeman accused the Minister of unnecessarily bringing religion into the issue and said a person's mother tongue and linguistic identity should not be confused with their religion.

“The Tamil language is the mother of boundless love and the very embodiment of compassion. Portraying Tamil as a language that does not teach love is an insult to Tamil and the Tamil national identity,” Seeman said.