The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister was responding to BJP’s Nainar Nagendran, who raised the issue of the DMK government using the term ‘Ondriya Arasu’ instead of ‘Mathiya Arasu.’
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on June 23, Wednesday said that the Tamil Nadu government will continue to refer to the Government of India as ‘Union government’ since that is what the Constitution says, and considering it a ‘social crime’ is wrong. He added that there is no need to fear the word ‘Union’ and that the word “holds the philosophy of federalism.” The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister was responding to BJP’s Nainar Nagendran, who raised the issue of DMK using the term ‘Ondriya Arasu’ instead of ‘Mathiya Arasu.’
“Some people think it is a social crime to call the government of India as ‘Union government.’ But this is a complete mistake. We’re simply stating what has already been said in law. We should abide by the Constitution and the Constitution has used the term ‘Union’,” Stalin told the Assembly.
Since the DMK came to power earlier in May, the government in Tamil Nadu has stopped referring to the Narendra Modi-led government as the ‘Centre’ (Mathiya Arasu) and has started referring to it as the ‘Union government’ (Ondriya Arasu). This had triggered a controversy as the move was questioned by some BJP supporters, with many calling it a ‘political move’ against the Modi government. However, Stalin has dismissed such allegations.
“The first line of our Constitution states, ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States’ That’s all. We’re only using that and nothing else. ‘Union’ is not a wrong term; it means the states are united,” Stalin said. He added that the use of the term by the DMK is not new. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) 1957 election manifesto had used the term ‘Indian Union’, he added.
“Some have been criticising us, saying that we’ve been using this term that has not already been used by Arignar Anna (Annadurai) and our thalaivar Kalaignar (Karunanidhi),” Stalin said.
He also quoted Annadurai’s Parliament speech on January 25, 1963. “Anna had remarked, ‘What do we mean by the sovereignty of the government? The preamble of the Constitution states that political sovereignty is upheld by the people. Legal sovereignty is divided between the federal union and its constituents, i.e. the states’,” Stalin said.
“The word ‘Samashti’ was coined by the venerable Mylai Ponnuswamy Sivagnanam aka Ma Po Si. ‘Discard excessive centralism and welcome the true union,’ wrote Rajaji. Therefore, no one needs to fear the word union. That one word holds the philosophy of federalism. That is why we have been using it, we will use it and we will continue to keep using it,” Stalin added.
Watch CM Stalin’s statements from the Assembly here:
அரசியலமைப்புச் சட்டத்தில் இந்தியா #UnionOfStates என்றே வரையறுக்கப்பட்டிருக்கிறது. மாநிலங்களால் ஆனதுதான் இந்தியா.#ஒன்றியம் என்ற சொல்லில்தான் கூட்டாட்சித் தத்துவம் அடங்கியிருக்கிறது. அதனால்தான் பயன்படுத்துகிறோம் – பயன்படுத்துவோம் – பயன்படுத்திக்கொண்டே இருப்போம். pic.twitter.com/AMKaddDCiy
— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) June 23, 2021
Earlier, speaking to TNM, constitution expert Subash Kashyap had said that using the term Centre is not correct as it is not there in the Constitution. “From the point of the usage of the words, ‘centre’ indicates a point in the middle of a circle, whereas ‘Union’ is the whole circle. In India, the relationship between the so-called ‘Centre’ and States, as per the Constitution, is actually a relationship between the whole and its parts. The relation between the whole and its parts is definitely different from the relation between a centre and its periphery,” he had said.
Also read: ‘Union govt’ vs ‘Centre’: What’s the difference, and why DMK govt is insisting on the former
Source: The News Minute