Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party national president J P Nadda and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat landed in Tamil Nadu on the occasion of Pongal on January 14.
While Nadda took part in several functions related to the celebration of Pongal in Chennai, Rahul attended a Jallikattu event in Madurai.
On the other hand, Mohan Bhagwat offered prayer at Sri Kadumbadi Chinnamman Temple in Ponniammanmedu. He also took part in Pongal celebrations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also greeted the people of Tamil Nadu. Nadda showered praise on Tamil language and said that he is proud to be in the state on this occasion.
However, referring to the language policy of the BJP the Congress leader said: “They believe that they can suppress the emotions of the Tamil people. They believe that they can crush the language of the Tamil people. They believe that they can suppress the spirit of the Tamil people. I came to give them a message that that nobody is going to suppress the spirit of the Tamil people.”
Reacting to Rahul the vice president of the state unit of the BJP, K Annamalai reminded Rahul that it was the UPA government which banned Jallikattu a decade ago. Today Rahul has come to celebrate the occasion just for the sake of politics.
Politicians from outside are making a beeline to Tamil Nadu as the state Assembly election is due in April-May. The ruling AIADMK, which may once again join hands with the BJP, is finding itself in a tight position as the NDA was routed in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. It won only one Lok Sabha seats while the rest 38 were bagged by the DMK-Congress-Left Alliance.
With Rajnikanth out of picture because of health reasons the battle in the state will be once again between the NDA and UPA.
