‘Congress imposed Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states’: Surya

New Delhi, February 2: Tejasvi Surya lambasted Karnataka Congress MP DK Suresh for demanding a separate nation for the south and also accused the Congress of imposing Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states in his speech in Parliament on Friday.

Speaking during the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in the Lok Sabha, Surya said: “Yesterday, Karnataka MP from Congress, Sri DK Suresh, also wanted a separate nation for South India. There’s no bigger insult to the Constitution and its Architect (than this demand). I am ashamed that a sitting member has not only violated the oath, but displayed the intentions of the Congress by demanding a separate nation for the Southern States.”

Further, debunking the narrative peddled by the Congress about BJP imposing Hindi on the south, Surya said: “I want to tell this August house that I come from Karnataka and my mother tongue is Kannada. I don’t want any Hindi imposition. If there’s one party that has been against Hindi imposition, which has always supported the vitality and diversity of India – it’s the BJP.

In the Constituent Assembly Debates, it was Syama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh (the initial avatar of the BJP), who opposed one official language and said: ‘Today it stands to the glory of India that we have so many languages from the north to the south, from the west to the East. each one of which in its own way, has made contributions which have made what Indian life and civilisation are today.’

“It is Congress which was imposing Hindi on the South. In the last 60 years, the Congress got 4 opportunities to draft the National Education Policy. Every time, the Congress NEP came with a 3-language formula under Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and not reviewed by Manmohan Singh. In the non-Hindi speaking states, Hindi was made compulsory in the 3-language formula.

“When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that we would present our full budget in July yesterday, it was an indication of our confidence. But the opposition kept commenting that it is arrogance. It is not that. It’s confidence.

“India is also exporting good governance models to the world. The world is taking note of the COVID model of India. The world is looking at how India has set for itself a digital public infrastructure like UPI which is the best in the world. Many countries are drawing inspiration from the legislative solutions like the Personal Data Protection Law.

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