Reporter’s diary: What’s there in a name? A lot when it comes to ‘NTR’

While slip of the tongue during debates in State Assembly is as common as opposition parties staging walkouts over rather trivial issues, the recent Assembly session that concluded on Thursday had more than its fair share of bloopers, that too from senior leaders of the Opposition on important matters.

Published on:

22 Feb 2020, 1:30 am

Chennai

With the ongoing protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR), and National Register of Citizens (NRC) becoming the topic of heated debate in the Assembly, senior opposition leaders interchanged these abbreviations in their haste to make a point. On a few occasions, top DMK leaders cited NRC instead of NPR and vice versa while pointing out the alleged flaws in the programmes. In contrast, the ruling party legislators, who had the responsibility of responding to these queries, carefully chose to avoid such confusion by using the Tamil expansions for NPR and NRC. A senior AIADMK minister even cautiously clarified his usage of Tamil to highlight these issues, ridiculing the opposition or not getting their facts right. The most infamous blooper that stole the show happened on Thursday morning when a senior DMK leader accidently said NTR instead of NPR, getting it mixed up with the name of yesteryear Telugu superstar and founder of Telugu Desam Party.

—Yazhiniyan, Chennai

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State Assembly