0 Comment(s) *
* The moderation of comments is automated and not cleared manually by indianexpress.com.
Despite protests by MPs from Tamil Nadu, Goyal urged Speaker Om Birla to give a ruling in the House that ministers can choose to reply in either Hindi or English and that there is no “rule that questions in English should be replied to in English only”. The face-off between the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government regarding a number of issues, including NEET and IAS cadre rules, has manifested in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday when Union minister Piyush Goyal refused to reply in English to a question posed by a DMK MP.
Despite protests by MPs from Tamil Nadu, Goyal urged Speaker Om Birla to give a ruling in the House that ministers can choose to reply in either Hindi or English and that there is no “rule that questions in English should be replied to in English only”.
Since the beginning of the Budget Session, the Lok Sabha has witnessed a number of such instances where the Treasury benches and Opposition members argued over the language used during question hour. While ministers like Ashwini Vaishnaw have obliged requests of MPs to reply in English, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had insisted last week that he would reply only in Hindi.
On Wednesday, Goyal’s refusal to oblige the demand triggered protests by MPs from Tamil Nadu.
When DMK MP from Erode, A Ganeshamurthi, asked a supplementary question in Tamil on FDI inflow, Goyal apparently missed the translation initially. He requested the member to repeat the question, but Ganeshamurthi asked the minister to speak in English. He said he had given notice to speak in Tamil. Any MP who wants to speak in languages other than English or Hindi must give prior notice to the table office so that the translator is present and a translation both in Hindi and English is available on the headphones placed at every seat.
Goyal replied: “I can speak in the language I desire. You can get the translation on your headphones. I can answer in any language.”
The Opposition protested this.
Goyal, however, continued to insist that he would answer only in Hindi. “You asked the question in Tamil… I will answer in Hindi.”
However, later, in his replies to BJD’s Bhartruhari Mahtab and DMK’s M Dhanush Kumar, Goyal spoke in English.
Criticising Goyal, Congress’s S Jothi Mani said ministers in the BJP government have been “taking such an arrogant attitude towards Tamil Nadu”.
Later, speaking to The Indian Express, Ganeshamurthi said: “I am a third-term MP and earlier it has been the practice that when a member asks a question in English, the ministers, if they are fluent with the language, reply in the same. But this government does not believe in it. It wants ‘one nation one language’, and it wants to impose Hindi on us.”
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd