CHENNAI: Reacting sharply to Governor RN Ravi’s critical remarks on the Dravidian ideology at an event here on Tuesday, DMK leader and Minister for natural resources S Regupathy said Ravi, who is “slandering” Tamil Nadu, should have been sent to Kamalalayam (TN BJP headquarters) instead of Raj Bhavan.
“Ravi said Dravidam was imaginary, Biharis were threatened in Tamil Nadu, rights of linguistic minorities here are denied. These were his baseless allegations.”
Speaking at the event, Ravi said Tamil Nadu politics was not regionalism, but it was Tamil “exceptionalism,” which showed hatred against other languages including those belonging to Dravidian family like Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam and not just against Hindi.
“Isn’t Governor Ravi aware that the word Dravidam is also featured in our national anthem?” asked Regupathy.
Recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks that an Odisha temple key was taken away to Tamil Nadu and Biharis were being threatened in Tamil Nadu, Regupathy said “the governor and BJP have the policy to speak against Tamil people wherever they go.”
The minister further said “Dravida model government is not against anybody. It gave the nod for the linguistic minorities to write 10th grade exams in their mother tongue even in 2024-25 through the order of the school education secretary. However, during the AIADMK rule, the permission was denied and as a result they had to approach the Supreme Court.”