Senior AIADMK leader comes down heavily on BJP
Cracks are appearing in the opposition alliance, with senior AIADMK leaders criticising the BJP for projecting itself as the alternative for the ruling DMK. However, State BJP president K Annamalai downplayed the criticism stating that these were individual opinions and not that of the principal opposition party.
The first one to fire the salvo was senior leader C Ponnaiyan, who said the BJP would never be able to grow in the State because it was anti-Tamil, citing Hindi imposition and NEET among other reasons. Echoing him, another senior leader D Jayakumar said the people of Tamil Nadu would not accept national parties, whether Congress or BJP. While it is natural for parties to have the ambition to capture power, the decision was that of the people, he added.
The BJP’s key ally in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK on Wednesday slammed the saffron party alleging that it is anti-Tamil and claimed that the party could never grow in the state.
The alliance with the BJP was merely an ‘electoral adjustment’ and the national party’s ideology is diametrically opposite to that of the AIADMK, veteran party leader C Ponnaiyan said.
Ponnaiyan alleged that the BJP is continuously ‘imposing’ Hindi despite AIADMK’s stiff opposition all along. “The imposition of Hindi is many times more than what it was during the Congress-led governments at the Centre,” he said. “We firmly stand by the 2-language policy of Tamil and English.”
Ponnaiyan, a founding member of the AIADMK, is the party’s organisation secretary and a senior spokesperson. A former Minister during the previous AIADMK regimes, he was part of the Cabinet led by both party founder MG Ramachandran and late leader J Jayalalithaa.