Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 1 (ANI): Tamil Nadu Congress President Selvaperundagai on Tuesday announced that the party will stage a black flag protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Tamil Nadu at Rameshwaram, highlighting concerns over federalism, state rights, and various policy issues.

Selvaperundagai accused the Prime Minister of disregarding federal principles and undermining the rights of the state.

'Why is he going to Tamil Nadu? When he doesn't care about federalism and snatching state rights. Tamil Nadu are going to do a black flag protest against PM Modi's visit to Tamil Nadu. It's he (PM Modi) who leads the union Ministers and doesn't give union education funds to the Tamil Nadu state and threatens the state to follow triple language. We are going to do black flag protest democratically,' he said.

Further, Selvaperundagai pointed out that the Union government had not released wages under the MGNREGA scheme for Tamil Nadu's beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi staunchly defended the state's language policy, invoking the legacy of late DMK leader M Karunanidhi while addressing concerns over the triple language policy under the New Education Policy (NEP).

Speaking in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Anbil Mahesh said, 'All members have been insisting on an important issue. As per DMK, it's our leader Karunanidhi who introduced the Tamil Thai Valthu (Tamil anthem), the Thirukural in government buses, the Valluvar Kootam constructed by him, a separate department for Tamil language development, government orders in Tamil, and made Tamil a classical language.'

Highlighting Karunanidhi's contributions, he challenged, 'There are 122 big languages in India and 1,599 languages in total. Search across India to see if anyone else worked to save their mother tongue like our leader Karunanidhi did.'The minister's remarks came in response to Opposition Deputy Leader RB Udayakumar, who raised concerns over a letter from Tamil Nadu's Chief Secretary to the Union Government, suggesting ambiguity and hinting that the state might have accepted the NEP's triple language policy.

The MK Stalin-led Tamil Nadu government has locked horns with the Central government over the three-language formula proposed in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the delimitation exercise. (ANI)