CHENNAI: On a day when Chief Minister M K Stalin protested Hindi imposition by New Delhi, a spat broke out between Governor R N Ravi and Stalin after singers missed the ‘Thekkanamum Adhir Sirantha Dravida Nal Thirunaadum’ line from the ‘Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu’ rendered at Doordarshan (DD) Kendra Chennai’s Hindi month valedictory function presided over by the governor.
Doordarshan apologised for the ‘inadvertent mistake’.
Much before the DD’s response, Stalin accused the governor of insulting TN and its people and demanded that he be recalled immediately by the centre. Stalin said that a person who doesn’t abide by the law and acts as per his wishes was not fit to hold that office and wondered if Ravi was a governor or an ‘Aryan’.
“Will the governor, suffering from the Dravidian allergy, ask the people to sing the national anthem leaving out ‘Dravida’,” the CM asked.
Reacting to the charge, Ravi accused the CM of making a racist remark. Ravi said the allegation against him was “cheap”.
“The CM knows well that I recite the full Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu with reverence, pride and precision,” the governor said in a post on ‘X’.
Responding to the governor, the CM asked why the governor, who boasts of knowing Thamizh Thaai Vaazthu fully, failed to correct those who skipped the line. “Had he done that, there would not have been a reaction,” the CM said.
The CM, in his letter to the PM, said, “I suggest that holding such Hindi-oriented events in non-Hindi speaking states could be avoided. Celebration of local language month in the respective states should be encouraged.”