Uproar in LS as Maran refers to Sanskrit as ‘dead language’

“You quote Thirukkural and say Tamil, Tamil, Tamil but do nothing for the classical language while you allocate crores of rupees for a dead language like Sanskrit,” Maran said winding up his speech during the discussion in Lok Sabha on the Union Budget for 2020-21.

Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur immediately sprung to his feet to demand that the remarks against Sanskrit should be expunged and that the member should apologise. 

He said that while he had no problems with Maran’s demand for support to Tamil language, he felt the remarks against Sanskrit were unwarranted. He was supported by BJP members, including Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Chaubey.

In his speech, Maran attacked the Budget saying the new personal income tax sops announced in it would discourage savings. He said the Finance Minister has claimed that the tax returns could be filed at the click of a button, but the reality is an assessee has to pay the auditor huge fees to get the work done.

Referring to the Aadhaar-Pan link, he said, the government has a huge data base with it, especially in the form of Aadhaar and the Citizenship Amendment Act along with NPR and NRC was only an attempt to divide the country.

“DMK president MK Stalin has initiated a campaign collecting two crore signatures against the CAA and the government should wake up from the slumber and stop trying to divide the country,” he added.

The DMK member accused the government of targeting actor Vijay, who was recently raided by the Income Tax Department, while actor Rajinikanth was given a relief ofRs 1 crore.