#TamilNadu trending post Guv’s speech criticising Dravidian politics

CHENNAI: Two days after Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi's controversial remarks that the State should be called as "Tamiligam", netizens and D stocks were trending hashtag Tamil Nadu and criticised the Governor for allegedly distorting the history and its values.

Several prominent personalities such as DMK deputy general secretary and MP Kanimozhi, MNM leader Kamal Haasan and cinematographer PC Sreeram have also tweeted to keep it going in the social media since Thursday.

Many shared the articles on the survey done on safety of the women with #TamilNadu, while a few shared the clipping of Congress national leader Rahul Gandhi’s speech in the Parliament, extolling Tamil Nadu and its social harmony and taking a dig at BJP that “You will never and ever rule the people of Tamil Nadu.”

The cynosure of the trending #TamilNadu was the speech of Dravidian icon CN Annadurai’s speech to emphasise the importance and its emotional connect of the people to call their state ‘Tamil Nadu’ in the Rajya Sabha on September 24 in 1963, while several D-stock shared the picture of Anna with his defining words “Call My State Tamil Nadu”.

Though senior BJP leaders like Subramanian Swamy and several other Hindu ideologues and netizens subscribed to right wing ideology defended and countered the usage of “Tamil Nadu”, they were outnumbered and outclassed by manifolds in the social and it was trending till Friday late afternoon.

A senior journalist also shared photocopy of the speech and debate of former CM Annadurai with reference in Sangam literature that the state as Tamil Nadu, while a twitterati (@AparnaKarthi) shared a picture of free bus ticket with caption ‘Women travel for free in Tamil Nadu’.

Joining the issue, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan also took to social media to extend his solidarity to the online campaign and twittered “Long Live Tamil Nadu” and repeated the same in Tamil and four other languages and concluded it with Long Live #India to express unity in diversity.

Popular cinematographer PC Sriram hit out at the Governor and posted a tweet stating that the Governor was acting like a politician and asked him to step down from the Constitutional posting. “#Tamilnadu shows India the way to keep these divisive (forces) out of National politics,” he tweeted and said the Governor's speech hurt the sentiment over their mother tongue.