MK Stalin urges Modi to make Tamil official language after PM's oldest-language remark

Chennai, Oct 01: Party President MK Stalin on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make Tamil as one of the official languages of the country.

'PM himself accepted that Tamil is the oldest language in the world, hence Centre has the responsibility to recognize the language,'' he said.

The DMK leaders' pitch to make Tamil as the official language of the country comes weeks after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Hindi should be made as the common language in India.

Taking to Twitter, Shah wrote,"Today, if there is one language that has the ability to string the nation together in unity, it is the Hindi language which is the most widely spoken and understood language in India.''

Earlier, Stalin had also congratulated PM Modi for speaking about the greatness of Tamil language at the Indian Institute of Technology's 56th convocation ceremony. He added that every Tamilianacross the world would have been happy and proud when PM Modi invoked Tamil poet and philosopher Kaniyan Pungundranar's quote "Yaadhum oore Yaavarum Kelir" in his address at the 74th session of United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) in New York.

Addressing BJP cadres at the Chennai airport on Monday, Prime Minister Modi said that his speech on the Tamil language in the United States has become a talking point across America.

"When I spoke in Tamil in the US and about the heritage of the Tamil language, it was received well and is now reverberating across the US. When I addressed the people in the US, I learnt that Tamil is a rich and diverse language," PM Modi said.