Tamil Nadu Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan yet again picked fight with The Hindu Publishing Group’s Chairperson Malini Parthasarathy making personal remarks, in yet another instance of the DMK Minister behaving like a troll.
The DMK Minister’s remarks came in response to Malini’s tweet over Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi’s clarification on the Tamil Nadu versus Thamizhagam debate.
On 4 January 2023, Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi said that the state has experienced “regressive politics” over the past 50 years and that Thamizhagam would be a more appropriate name than Tamil Nadu while speaking at an event held at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai to felicitate the organizers and volunteers of Kashi Tamil Sangamam.
Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi’s emphasis on the term Thamizhagam was to show that Tamil Nadu is an integral part of India and to defeat the false narrative that Tamils are Dravidians and different from the rest of the people in India.
However, the Governor’s remarks were misconstrued which had created a furore in Tamil Nadu with the DMK using the opportunity to satiate its separatist itch.
Days later, the Governor clarified that he dwelled upon the word Tamizhagam in the historical and cultural context as there was no ‘Tamil Nadu’ per se as it exists today.
Welcoming the Governor’s stance, Malini Parthasarathy on 18 January 2023 said that the Governor’s words “became fodder for politically motivated rabble rousers”.
A welcome response from TN Governor #RNRavi re:the controversy over his use of the term “Thamizhagam”. Actually intending to compliment the Tamil historical imagination,his words instead became fodder for politically motivated rabble rousers.Intolerance is sadly on the rise here. pic.twitter.com/ayixwbEpLO
— Malini Parthasarathy (@MaliniP) January 18, 2023
In a comment unbefitting of the position he holds, the DMK Finance Minister resorted to calling her names while referring to the incident when Malini Parthasarathy joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call to thank corona warriors.
Hmm….fodder for rabble rousers, ah?
சரி, சரி..
Does anyone have a link to the clip this parody-of-a-newspaper-publisher posted of herself joyously plate-banging (with her entire domestic entourage) and chanting the mantra "Go Corona Go", swaying ever-so-lightly to the rhythm? https://t.co/hyCuetfeTl
— Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) (@ptrmadurai) January 31, 2023
Malini Parthasarathy hit back at the snobbish remark of the Minister calling him a ‘petty troll’.
It’s a pity that Tamil Nadu is saddled with an abusive Finance Minister in @ptrmadurai who has more time on his hands than he should as custodian of State finances, to be making derisive comments about people he doesn’t know such as me. Sorry that you are such a petty troll! https://t.co/WParwU4xfn
— Malini Parthasarathy (@MaliniP) January 31, 2023
The DMK Minister, who himself is a dynast politician belonging to a dynastic party, that demands loyalty to the Karunanidhi family, called Malini a ‘cultist’ for her appreciative remarks of the Modi government.
TN Fiscal measures surged last year after 7 yrs of decline, & will again this year!
I ALSO have a duty to expose (as a cultist) a newspaper owner who says Tamils standing up for Tamil Nadu are "politically motivated rabble rousers"
Who fits the "abusive, derisive, troll" label? https://t.co/tYPJAZWXRu
— Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) (@ptrmadurai) February 1, 2023
This is not the first time that Palanivel Thiagarajan had targeted a woman journalist. Earlier, he had attacked Malini Parthasarathy for sharing Isha Foundation’s response to the DMK minister’s diatribe which The Hindu had carried in the form of an article.
In another instance, Palanivel Thiagarajan when he was the DMK IT Wing head indulged in denigrating a Ramnath Goenka Award Winning journalist Sandhya Ravishankar who had exposed some of the false rhetoric of the Pollachi Sexual Abuse case.
Very recently he had abused business news journalist Chandra R Srikanth by invoking her caste identity.
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