BJP Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai on Sunday claimed Hindi was the ‘compulsory’ third language during the Congress-led UPA regime and asserted it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who gave the option of studying any Indian language as a third language.

Further, referring to the New Education Policy (NEP 20202), Mr Annamalai said Modi has also made “Tamil the compulsory medium of instruction from classes 1-5,” apparently in the context of Tamil Nadu.

Despite ruling Tamil Nadu for many years, the DMK never made Tamil medium of instruction compulsory, he claimed.

Countries like China, Germany and Japan have become ‘important’ since they impart education to children in their mother tongue, he said addressing a public meeting here.

In the first two education policies, Hindi was the compulsory third language and so was the case in the draft NEP 2020, he said.

However, in May 2019, “for the first time in the country, Modi changed the third language from Hindi in draft NEP to any Indian language–this is the 3-language policy,” Mr Annamalai said.

Training his guns against the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, he said the party was part of Congress-led coalition government for 10 years during which period “Hindi was compulsory third language.” “For the first time, NEP offers a third language of your choice, and you can study either Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam or even Hindi. This is the 3-language policy,” he said.

On the signature campaign launched earlier this month in support of NEP 2020 and the 3-language policy, Mr Annamalai said 26 lakh signatures have been received in 18 days.

Taking a jibe at the DMK, he said the party has also launched many signature campaigns, including the one against NEET.

“The DMK’s anti-NEET signature campaign–what happened, how many signed. nobody knows,” he said.

Mr Annamalai also claimed many DMK leaders, including ministers, were speaking ill of north Indians and took exception to that.

CM Stalin was living in an “illusion” that his party would win over 200 seats in the 2026 Assembly polls in the state, he added.

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