Chennai, Aug 10 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Finance Minister N Marie Wilson on Monday angrily retorted to a DMK member accusing him of reading out the Budget speech with “errors in Tamil” and switching to English.
DMK senior and former minister E V Velu intervened to point out the difference in dialects in the state including a wide difference in north and south Chennai and stressed that Tamil Nadu stood for dual language policy of Tamil and English.
Assembly Speaker J C D Prabhakar pacified the minister saying the members should handle such debates in a lighter vein.
He noted that the Assembly is a space where multiple languages (Tamil and English) were permitted under the rules and encouraged members to focus on policy discussions rather than personal remarks.
The trouble began when MDMK party member T M Rajendran who won on DMK’s Rising Sun symbol, from Kadayanallur Assembly constituency, remarked in the Assembly that Wilson’s speech on August 5 during the Budget presentation contained “grammatical errors in Tamil” and that Wilson switched to English.
“Atleast in the future, when he gets the opportunity the Finance Minister should speak in impeccable Tamil,” Rajendran remarked.
Taking strong exception to Rajendran faulting him for not speaking in flawless Tamil, a visibly annoyed Wilson got up and defended his communication style and emphasised that his primary focus was on governance and the state’s progress rather than linguistic formalities.
“The government under Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay has made significant achievements in the past 60-75 days, successfully bringing Rs 15,000 crores into the treasury through various reforms,” the Finance Minister without elaborating.
Prabhakar even cited an instance when then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa replied in Telugu when a Congress member spoke in Telugu.
There were also instances in the past budget sessions when then Finance Minister P Thiagarajan (DMK), exercised English and hence the use of language should not be a cause for conflict in Assembly debates, Prabhakar stated.
Further, the Speaker noted that the Assembly rules 86 allowed proceedings to be conducted either in Tamil or English, or both and emphasised that the focus should be on the intent and the feelings behind the words rather than the language used.
The Finance Minister expressed that he felt other members were mocking his communication style and background rather than focusing on his substantive work. They were mocking his appearance, caste, and gender-related topics, and that they had now moved on to mocking the language he uses.
He defended himself by stating that he is an experienced professional who has worked in education for 25 to 30 years, during which his primary mode of communication was in English. He insisted that he cannot change his unique way of speaking just to satisfy others.
The Speaker advised Wilson to sit down and avoid getting angry. PTI JSP JSP ROH
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