Chennai, March 12: Upping the ante against the Centre on the NEP, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Wednesday alleged that it was not the National Education Policy but a “saffron policy” aimed at developing Hindi and not the nation.
Addressing a public rally, Stalin also took on the Modi government on the delimitation exercise, claiming that it was attempting to “sustain power” by winning in northern states. The BJP was trying to increase the number of MPs in states of their influence and thereby develop party, but the DMK will stop it, he asserted.
Stalin’s “saffron policy” jibe came a day after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan accused the DMK-led state government of trying to score political brownies to “revive” the ruling party’s fortunes, saying the DMK’s “latest cacophony” on language imposition and its stance on NEP’s three-language formula exposed their “hypocrisy”.
“We oppose NEP as it will completely destroy Tamil Nadu’s education growth. The NEP does not accept reservation that is social justice. This policy denies the assistance amount to SCs, STs and Other Backward Classes,” Stalin alleged.
The chief minister said the Centre was trying to filter students by holding public exam for classes, including 3 and 5 and the exams for classes from 9 to 12 will be semester-based and similar to All India exams. Further, he alleged that in the name of vocational education, from class 6 onwards, they would implement “caste-based vocations.” While Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan says that such a policy must be accepted, the CM said he had already made it categorical that the policy shall not be accepted even if the Centre was to provide Rs 10,000 crore.
Pradhan should not take a class on democracy for the Tamil people. Stalin said: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I have an appeal! Try to develop India rather than Hindi.
Sanskrit cannot be developed even if you spend thousands of crores. You will spend crores to develop a language that is not spoken by the people. Will you betray our Tamil language that is recognised in several countries and spoken by the people? On the fishermen issue, Stalin said a small country like Sri Lanka does not respect the Centre. As many as 550 fishermen were arrested last year alone and during the past two months 130 were arrested. During the 10-year Modi rule, 3,000 fishermen were arrested. (PTI)
