Yet again, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Dayanidhi Maran makes it a point to insult and mock the Tamil Brahmin background of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In a nearly 18-minute-long tirade, Dayanidhi Maran went on a lengthy rant and peddled lies about the Finance Minister, the Prime Minister, and the BJP government at the centre while hiding facts from the members of the House.
He started by saying, “This interim budget is an eyewash, it is a huge disappointment especially since this budget is useless for the poor. The middle-class people were expecting tax benefits since they kept on saying they are doing good things but all they got was ‘naamam'” – a derogatory representation of the Vaishnavite mark on the forehead connected to cheating.
After fumbling through numbers and mumbling some nonsense on the budget, he starts to target Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. He said, “We are proud of her since she is a Tamilian, she was born in TN and belongs to the state, we thought she was a good person, a mighty person, but all that comes out of her mouth is different from the truth. She said this interim budget was focused on the poor, youth, and women. But the truth is that the rich such as Ambani, Adani, and Tata are becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer. The revenue of India – 40% of it is held by the Tatas, Ambanis, and Adanis. The middle class is becoming poor, they are not having any income. They said they would provide jobs for youth, when – after they are re-elected to power. Mr Prime Minister, in 2014 you said you would generate 2 crore jobs per year, what happened to that? For 10 years you were all talk and no action – Dayanidhi Maran used the Tamil phrase “Vaaila Vadai Sudardu” to explain this. Opportunities for women are decreasing”, he further mumbled some numbers fumbling all the while.
He continued his tirade and peddled the same lies that the DMK has been peddling all this time. He said, “You waived off all the loans given to Ambani, Adani, and Tata (instead of saying write off)
You never waived off farmer loans but did that only for the rich people’s loans. You brought anti-farmer laws but the people opposed them and you repealed them.”
He again fumbles mentioning numbers about inflation. He claimed that the price of essential commodities was going up constantly, the highest in 30 years. He also added that people were instead losing their savings.
Now comes the anti-TN stance claim. He said, “Last year when the Michaung cyclone hit Chennai, our CM Stalin met PM and asked for ₹7033 crores as relief. ₹12655 crores was also asked. But till now what did we get? Zero. We did not receive even a naya paisa from the “Union” government. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh came to TN to oversee the relief efforts, and even Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also came, she saw, waved her hands, spoke some things, gave interviews, and left without giving even a single rupee. The cruelty of this is that we said we are not asking for your money, just give us from our tax revenue share, our TN’s future Udhayanidhi Stalin asked. He said, we are not asking for your money or your father’s money, just give our tax revenue share. In response to that, our Finance minister held a press conference, and for one hour she lashed out at us. What did she say? That Udhayanidhi Stalin did not speak respectfully, he should not say words like your father’s money or mother’s money. But she didn’t realise that the PM himself once asked if it was your “grandfather’s money”. Didn’t Nirmala Sitharaman find time to advise him? I am asking her, Madam Nirmala Sitharaman, you are speaking about mother’s money, I ask you in return, is it your father’s (thopanaar) money? (Here Dayanidhi Maran has used the word Thopanaar, which is a Tambram dialect directed at the background of Nirmala Sitharaman). If I say that, will it be nice? No, right? It is exactly that, your speech was filled with vehemence.”
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already clarified this claim in her press conference.
Then he went on to mock PM Modi and spoke about demonetisation asking him where the black money went. He also asked about the ₹2000 note claiming that the government had made a mistake by removing it from circulation.
Lies Around COVID-19
He spoke about COVID-19 and said that several people died because of the pandemic. He blamed the BJP government for bringing COVID-19 into the country. He said, “How did COVID-19 enter India? The reason for that is the BJP. For the Gujarat elections, they conducted an event called Namaste Trump. They kept all the airports open for that. COVID entered India in that way. Had that event not taken place, so many 1000s of lives would have been saved.” He also blamed the government for showing a low death rate.
Dayanidhi Maran is factually wrong in this case, the first COVID case was detected in Kerala on 27 January 2020 from a student who had returned from Wuhan. Airports were kept open for people to return to their home country.
Namaste Trump event was held on 24 and 25 February 2020. The country issued a lockdown in March 2020.
Onion Prices
Going back to Nirmala Sitharaman, he falsely accused her of shirking the responsibility for the rising onion prices. He said, “When the onion prices were rising, in this Parliament, Finance Minister said, onions? The price has risen? I do not eat onions so I do not know about it. What kind of arrogance is that?” The truth is that Nirmala Sitharaman replied to a question by a fellow parliamentarian who asked her if she ate onions at home, and she replied saying no we do not eat much onion and garlic.
Here is a video of the same:
Talking about the price hike in petrol and LPG, he said, “Post Covid, you have hiked petrol and LPG rates, petrol prices have hit ₹100, LPG has hit nearly ₹1000. Because of the war in Russia, they said they are getting oil at lower prices. But who is buying that oil? Reliance and Adani and who are they giving it to? Not India, but exporting it abroad. They made a huge amount of profit with that. With that profit, they could have reduced the prices and benefitted us. But what did this BJP government do? They placed Modi selfie stands in every petrol pump. It costs ₹6.5 lakhs. For what? To take a selfie with the PM. Was that necessary? They could have used that money for the public.”
Well, once again Dayanidhi Maran is skipping facts. The price of LPG has been brought down several times and it is much less than what it was in the UPA era when Dayanidhi Maran was a minister in that government. Also, coming to petrol and diesel prices, Tamil Nadu is one of the states with the highest rates – the state government has not given any subsidy compared to what UP or other states have done. They have ensured it is maintained at the same rate for the past year or so.
On ED
He said, “You are misusing the ED. You said the Congress party especially Indira Gandhi misused the emergency. That is a big crime. You said you would not make that mistake/crime. But today like the emergency, you are using the ED and filing cases, 95% of them are on the opposition members. You are doing this for your benefit.”
Dayanidhi Maran hits a self-goal here when saying 95% of the cases are against the opposition – endorsing how corrupt the members of the opposition are.
PayTM, NEET
When the PM was pushing the Digital India programme, his photo appeared with the PayTM brand. Today, PayTM is under scrutiny and is going to be shut down.
Again Dayanidhi Maran is wrong – PayTM is functioning as is, the PayTM bank is the one under scrutiny because of RBI regulations.
He again continued peddling lies on NEET. He said students were dying not just in TN but in the country because of NEET. He pointed out that several students in Kota were committing suicide because of NEET.
Jumping back to Nirmala Sitharaman, he said when former CM Jayalalithaa passed away, Nirmala Sitharaman was in Chennai and she tried to capture power and wanted to become Chief Minister and that she lied to the people about banning NEET.
Modi & His Love For Tamil – Ulterior Motive Claimed By Dayanidhi Maran
Talking about Modi spreading the greatness of Tamil he said, “When PM comes to TN, he speaks in Tamil, when he goes to Karnataka, he speaks in Kannada, when he goes to Kerala, he speaks in Malayalam, when he goes to Andhra, he speaks in Telugu and when he goes to West Bengal, he speaks in Bengali. There is a folklore in our state, when someone wants to catch a hen, he would say bobo bobo and the hen would think, oh this man can speak my language, he is my friend and willingly go to him. Little does the hen know that he is doing that to fry and eat the hen! That is what is happening here.”
Not The First Time
In Augist 2023, the DMK organised a “day-long fast” on 20 August 2023 to protest against the union government’s insistence on continuing with the exam. Speaking at the event, DMK MP and former Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, made several casteist remarks against Brahmins and in particular against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
He said, “Anitha’s (the girl who died by suicide in 2017 after being unable to secure a medical seat) brother spoke here today and he said 2017, the year Anitha died, was an important year. Why do you think is it an important year? It is because in 2016, J Jayalalithaa passed away and BJP wanted to use every opportunity to come to power with the help of the “slaves” and that is why they sent “Nirmala Mami”. Ok, they sent Nirmala Sitharaman. What she does is (laughs, as someone points out why he mentioned the word Mami – he responds by saying, I said it inadvertently.)
He continued to say, “That woman has no work in Tamil Nadu, she is not even an elected Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu, and she has never come to this side. She claims to have been born here and probably has her roots in Tamil Nadu, she knows several languages but doesn’t care for the state at all.”
How dare you say Nirmala mami on stage ? @Dayanidhi_Maran
She is finance minister of India & you are MP of Lok Sabha . #Shame on you Mr.Dayanidhi Maran.
This is #DravidianModel
Of talking. @nsitharaman@HMOIndia@loksabhaspeaker@annamalai_k@annamalai_chap2#சின்ன_தத்தி pic.twitter.com/04vTiI3iYC— 🇮🇳 𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖚𝖐𝖆 -#𝕬𝖓𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖆𝖑𝖆𝖎 𝕬𝖗𝖒𝖞 💪 (@Renuka9907) August 20, 2023
The word Mami is used as a slur and in derogatory fashion especially by Dravidian ideologues when addressing Tamil Brahmin women in Tamil Nadu. Netizens questioned the hypocrisy of Dayanidhi Maran to address Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman as “mami” when he himself has married a Tamil Brahmin from The Hindu family. It is also noteworthy that Murasoli Maran, the father of Dayanidhi Maran and nephew of M Karunanidhi was also married to a Tamil Brahmin woman.
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