Allegations of Hindi imposition are incorrect: Nirmala Sitharaman

Nirmala Sitharaman defended the Central Government in language policy controversy and said that Hindi is not imposed on anybody and the allegations are untrue.

Chennai: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said that the allegations of Hindi imposition are not correct. The central government is not forcing the Hindi language on anybody. She made the statement while she was attending the inaugural programme of the International Business Conference of Nagarathars 2019 as the chief guest, at Chennai.

"On the contrary, under Shreshtha Bharat Scheme, govt is only propagating the Tamil language. Whatever has happened recently, it has happened at an administrative level, it can't be taken as an imposition," she added.

While justifying her move of breaking the tradition of carrying a suitcase to present the budget, she said, "I didn't carry a suitcase. We aren't a suitcase-carrying govt as suitcase also denotes something else, suitcase-taking, suitcase-giving. Modi Ji's govt is not suitcase govt."