AICC silent, but Tamil Nadu Congress backs DMK on ₹ symbol swap

New Delhi: Tamil Nadu Pradesh Congress Committee president K Selvaperunthagai extended full backing to the ally DMK government's contentious decision to replace the rupee symbol with a Tamil letter in the state budget logo, saying it was a reaction to the Centre "imposing Hindi" on the southern state.

The comments came even as the All India Congress Committee leadership had not yet come out with an official statement on the issue of the Stalin government dropping the rupee symbol, which, incidentally, was adopted during the tenure of the erstwhile UPA government.

Selvaperunthagai said the TN Congress was also fully backing and participating in the DMK-driven agitations against the three-language policy in the New Education Policy (NEP) and population-based delimitation exercise.


The protests are seen also as the TN allies firming up an "anti-Centre" plank for next year's assembly election.

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin is slated to host a meeting of southern leaders on Saturday against the proposed delimitation formula.

Selvaperunthagai told ET, "The decision of the Tamil Nadu state government to replace the rupee symbol with the Tamil letter in the budget logo should be seen as a way of reacting to the Modi government imposing Hindi in the educational institutions of the state. The state government was demonstrating its protest against the Centre's ways. The TN Congress understands the sentiments of the state government. Please note that the Congress, and also the DMK, are not against the Hindi language. We are only against the Centre trying to impose Hindi in Tamil Nadu."

On the three-language policy in the New Education Policy, he said, "The very intention of the Modi government's three-language policy in the NEP is to impose Hindi in the schools of TN. Why should this be done when the two-language policy, implemented since the time of the governments of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, has been working smoothly in the state?"

Maintaining that a population-based delimitation discriminates against the south, Selvaperunthagai said, "The population-based delimitation is designed to punish Tamil Nadu and other southern states, which effectively carry out population-control policies, by reducing their Lok Sabha seats, and reward the north Indian states for their total failure in controlling population by increasing their seats."