Tuesday, December 21 2004 15:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today (Dec 21, 2004) charged Union Road Transport Minister T R Baalu with imposing Hindi on people of the State by permitting installation of 'Kilometre stones' along National Highways with Hindi inscriptions and requested the Prime Minister to instruct the highways ministry to stop it.

In a strongly worded statement, she said that Baalu, a staunch follower of DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) president M Karunanidhi, who claimed to be the embodiment of Dravidian principles, had allowed the National Highways Authority of India, functioning under him, to install such stones.

"Has it happened without his knowledge or without the knowledge of Karunanidhi, considered the lever of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government at the Centre and the brain behind the Government," she asked.

"Those who came to power on the anti-Hindi plank have invited Hindi to the State," she said referring to the anti-Hindi agitation in 1965.

"There are so many ways to show their slavish mentality to their Delhi bosses. Why are they adamant on imposing Hindi on the people of the State?" she asked.

In her letter to the Prime Minister, she urged him to take into account, the 'extreme sensitivity' of the issue and the views of the State Government and instruct that the practice of having inscriptions on kilometre stones only in Tamil and English, be restored immediately.