LS polls: ‘Annamalai ignorant of the history of Tamil Nadu, Tamil’, says Mutharasan

CHENNAI: Hitting out at BJP state president K Annamalai for making derogatory remarks against the anti-Hindi protest movement in the state, CPI state secretary R Mutharasan on Sunday termed the saffron party leader as a blabbermouth and ignorant of the history of the country and Tamil Nadu or its language.

"The anti-Hindi agitation in 1965 is not an ordinary protest. When the Hindi was imposed, the whole state rose against it. I took part as a school kid. Several people were killed in the protest. After that the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured that the Hindi would not be imposed. I strongly condemn 'arrogant' Annamalai who does not know the state's history for making a derogatory remark against the anti-Hindi protest, " he told reporters after releasing his party's election manifesto here.

He further said that even though there are 22 scheduled languages in the country, the RSS, the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, recognises only two languages - Sanskrit and Hindi.

"When the Prime Minister comes to the state, he speaks a lot about the Tamil language. When he allocates funds, he will reduce the funds for Tamil while increasing for Hindi and Sanskrit, " he said.

Taking a dig at Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, he said that she had taken a wise decision not to contest the Lok Sabha polls from the state as she knows well her party will not win any seat here.

"But it is sad that Tamilisai Soundararajan has resigned her Governor post to contest in the election. I will tell you Annamalai who is contesting in Coimbatore will not even win a seat, " he said.

Asserting that democracy is under threat in the country if the BJP wins, he appealed to the people to vote out Narendra Modi's government from power to save the country and secularism.

He also criticised the BJP for misusing central agencies like IT to issue notice to political parties during the Lok Sabha polls.