'DMK betraying Tamil people by opposing Hindi'

Madurai/Trichy: BJP's state general secretary Raama Srinivasan accused DMK of betraying the Tamil people by preventing them from learning Hindi. Anti-Hindi protests by former chief minister C N Annadurai was authentic as he never owned any Hindi teaching schools, unlike the present DMK leaders, he said.

BJP carried out a signature campaign in support of the three-language police at Simmakal in Madurai on Thursday.

Addressing the reporters on the sidelines of the campaign, Raama Srinivasan said that the DMK is falsely propagating that the three-language policy is a decoy to impose Hindi, but it was Congress that imposed Hindi. The three-language policy allows students to learn any third language after their mother tongue and link language. States such Kerala, Gujarat adopted the three-language policy and prospered, he said.

"Can chief minister Stalin ask DMK members to close their schools teaching Hindi? We are not forcing Hindi, but students can learn any third language," he added.

Meanwhile, BJP leader H Raja kicked off a door-to-door signature campaign at Mallakottai in Trichy on Thursday. A similar campaign was also carried out at No 1 Tollgate there.