Can You Talk About Udhayanidhi's 'Sanatana Dharma Must Be Destroyed' Remarks? BJP Asks Stalin Over Bihar Yatra

The BJP has slammed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin who joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar on Wednesday.

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) founder Mukesh Sahani and CPI (ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya are also present in the rally at Muzaffarpur.

The BJP has targeted the Tamil Nadu CM over the past controversies on "anti-Bihar" and "anti-Sanatana" remarks made by DMK leaders in the past and urged Stalin to make the same comments on Biharis from the stage.

Notably, the BJP has reminded Stalin about Udhayanidhi's comments on Sanatana Dharma which had triggered a massive outrage as he compared the religion to "dengue" and "malaria" while calling it for eradication. He had claimed that Sanatana Dharma was against social justice and equality.

BJP Attacks Stalin

Narayanan Tirupathi, Tamil Nadu BJP spokesperson, said: "I challenge Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, who is going to Bihar: If you have the courage, can you speak there about your son Udhayanidhi's statement that 'Sanatana Dharma must be destroyed'? Furthermore, can you boldly repeat the statement made by your relative and DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran that "Biharis clean toilets in Tamil Nadu"?"

He continued, "Aren't you the one who stands tall with principles? Aren't you the lion of the Dravidian model of self-respect? Let's see you say it."

Former Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai attacked the TN Chief Minister by sharing a compilation of video clips and tweets of the DMK leaders mocking Biharis.

In a post, he said, "Hope he takes the stage with Thiru @RahulGandhi avl and proudly repeats every one of those insults in front of the very people he and his party members mocked."

The BJP"s ally the JDU too did not spare him and party leader Abhishek Jha said, "Rahul-ji has called Stalin sahab in Bihar, who has made vulgar comments on Hindu mythology. He also called Revanth Reddy, who had raised questions on the DNA of Biharis. How can Tejaswi Yadav expect that people of Bihar will support him when he is accompanied by such people with such thoughts."

DMK's Controversies

The DMK party in Tamil Nadu has frequently been embroiled in controversies over disparaging remarks made by its leaders targeting people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This pattern is rooted in the party's Dravidian ideology, which champions Tamil pride and regional autonomy while opposing what it perceives as the cultural and linguistic imposition of the Hindi-speaking North.

The party has often stereotyped migrants from UP and Bihar as backward and uncultured, using their migration to Tamil Nadu for low-wage jobs as a basis for mockery and to contrast the "progressive South" with a "less-developed North."

Several key leaders have made such controversial statements over the years:

In 2010, former DMK president M Karunanidhi claimed that migrants from UP and Bihar "lack culture" and were causing a "cultural invasion" in the state.

In 2017, the current Chief Minister, MK Stalin, mocked the 'backwardness' of northern states, suggesting their poor economic conditions forced people to seek manual labour jobs in Tamil Nadu.

DMK leader SK Thamizharasan warned in a 2018 speech that if migrants from UP and Bihar "are not properly controlled, they will end up becoming the 'kiss of death' to our culture and economy."