Chennai: DMK today staged a walkout from the Assembly after the AIADMK refused to pass a resolution, insisting the Centre to conduct the postal department exams in regional languages along with English and Hindi.
Heated argument was witnessed when the DMK brought a special calling attention motion on the issue. DMK legislator Thangam Thennarasu said the policy is aimed to shun the doors for the people from the southern states in the postal department. Replying to this, Minister D Jayakumar said the government is firm in its two language policy and always opposed Hindi imposition. “Our stand is also same as that of Opposition parties,” he said.
In his response, DMK Deputy Leader of Opposition in the House, Durai Murugan said the government should pass a resolution if they are firm on their stand. Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam said AIADMK MP will raise this issue in the Parliament tomorrow and based on the outcome, a decision will be taken after consultation with the Opposition parties.
Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami added that the government is also approaching the issue emotionally and will take a decision based on the Central government’s response. He also said the DMK and its alliance party MPs should raise this issue in the Parliament. The DMK and its alliance party legislators staged a walkout stating that they were not satisfied with the government’s reply.
Law Minister C V Shanmugam said the DMK’s plan is to create a conflict between the State government and Central government. Speaking to mediapersons after staging the walkout, Durai Murugan said Palaniswami has insulted the anti-Hindi feelings of DMK. “Palaniswami said the DMK is looking for reasons to stage a walk out which is wrong. When even IAS exams can be taken in Tamil, why it is not applicable for postal department exams,” he added.
The department of posts in the Ministry of Communication issued the circular withdrawing the option of candidates writing their examinations in regional languages 11 July. The amendment to restrict the examination language to Hindi and English made it difficult for many candidates who appeared for the examination yesterday.
Till last year, candidates were allowed to take the exams in any of the 15 languages where Hindi was not the local language. These included Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada in the southern States.