Tenkasi (Tamil Nadu): Continuing their protest for the second day against the Centre for insisting the Tamil Nadu government accept the New Education Policy (NEP), a group of DMK men defaced the Hindi lettering on the trilingual name board at Sankarankovil railway station in Tenkasi district on Monday.
The DMK men, led by E Raja MLA, who is also Tenkasi North District DMK Secretary, painted Hindi lettering with black paint at the railway station signage and shouted slogans against the central government for indirectly attempting to impose Hindi in Tamil Nadu.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) registered a case against the DMK men for defacing the signage under the relevant sections of the Indian Railway Act, sources in RPF said.
The names of the railway stations were written in three languages—Tamil, Hindi, and English on the nameplates, as mandated by the Official Languages Act, 1963.
It may be recalled that the DMK cadres defaced the Hindi lettering on the signboard at Pollachi Junction in Coimbatore district and Palayamkottai railway station in Tirunelveli district and wrote ‘Tamil Vazhga’ (Hail Tamil) letters with spray paint on Sunday.
Chief Minister M K Stalin categorically stated that he will not sign the NEP even if the Union Government offers Rs 10,000 crore to the State.
‘I will not allow the NEP to commit the sin of pushing Tamil Nadu backwards by 2,000 years. NEP is a direct threat to the future of our children. We are not against any language. But if anyone tries to impose a language on us, we will remain firm in opposing its implementation. We do not oppose NEP just because it promotes Hindi; we resist it because it is a policy that pushes students out of schools, he added.
The DMK’s allies Congress, CPI, CPM, VCK, MDMK, MMK, IUML, and others, besides the opposition AIADMK, also strongly opposed the NEP.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stated that funds to the tune of Rs 2,152 crore under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme would not be released to Tamil Nadu unless the state government fully implements NEP, including the three-language policy.