A day after his tweet (since deleted) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on teaching Tamil as an optional language to students outside Tamil Nadu triggered a row, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Thursday insisted that neither he nor his government endorsed the three-language formula.
He also defended his deleted tweet and said it was taken out of context.
Speaking to reporters at the airport here, Mr. Palaniswami alleged that the tweet was deliberately twisted for political expediency by members of an Opposition party. The Chief Minister insisted that the AIADMK government would only support the two-language formula, following in the footsteps of C.N. Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa.
‘Chance to learn Tamil’
“Tamil is an ancient and classical language,” Mr. Palaniswami said, adding that Tamil-speaking “brothers and sisters” living in other States must have the opportunity to teach their children the language. Asked why he had tweeted and not written a letter to the Prime Minister, he joked that if a tweet could draw such opposition, a letter would have kicked up a storm.
According to him, when he was in New Delhi recently for Mr Modi’s swearing-in ceremony, Tamil journalists had represented to him that their wards were unable to learn Tamil in schools. It was in this context that he had tweeted, hoping that children of Tamilians living outside the State would be able to learn the language, he contended.
On ties between the BJP and the AIADMK Mr. Palaniswami said that the alliance continues. He claimed that the vote share of the AIADMK had decreased in the Lok Sabha elections because the party contested a limited constituencies. Accusing the DMK-Congress alliance of making “false and impractical” promises, the Chief Minister said that the DMK-led alliance winning 37 out of 38 Lok Sabha seats in the State was not a “true victory”.
Mr. Palaniswami also claimed that Congress president Rahul Gandhi hd allegedly said during a campaign speech in Karnataka that the Mekedatu project would be taken up and the Cauvery Water Management Authority would be dissolved if the Congress came to power. He expressed the hope that Karnataka would release Cauvery water for Tamil Nadu in time for the cultivation of the kuruvai crop.
The Chief Minister also claimed that leaders from AMMK would come back to AIADMK “step by step.” On the question of exempting students from the State from taking the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), he said that the State government could not decide on that and pointed out the resolution passed by the Assembly demanding exemption from NEET.
