A viral image claiming that BJP has promised to rename Tamil Nadu as Dakshina Pradesh in the national language is found to be fake. The claim that it was part of BJP’s manifesto is found to be untrue and the BJP is now accusing DMK of spreading false information to malign the reputation of the national party.
The BJP posted images from their Twitter handle with individual manifesto promises along with the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda and BJP state unit president L Murugan and the hashtag of #Thamaraiyin_TholaiNokku. However, using a similar template, a viral image claims, “In order to take the pride of Tamil Nadu across the country and ease their understanding, the name of Tamil Nadu will be changed as ‘Dakshina Pradesh’.”
A social media user, Prema Siva Kumar took to Twitter and said, “Is it true National language? Do we have an official national language? Wow looks like changing names is one of the primary objectives of the government.”
The image also incited anger and was doing the rounds on social media. However, the statement was not part of the manifesto document shared by BJP with the media. Talking to TNM, Narayanan Thirupathy, spokesperson of BJP said, “This is fake news. This is being spread by the DMK led front to harm us.”
The BJP released their manifesto on Monday with promises to create a law to make forceful religious conversion a crime and implementing the recommendations of the Justice Venugopal committee to stop religious riots. To create separate legislation to protect cow slaughter and to stop the smuggling of cows for slaughter to neighbouring states. The recovered cows will be taken care of at gaushalas of Tamil Nadu temples, the manifesto said.
The BJP also promised to make Tamil Nadu the number 1 state in South India’s ease of doing business. They have assured that the administration of Hindu temples will be given to a separate board of Hindu scholars and saints.