Actor Ranjana Natchiyaar joined fellow actor Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam Wednesday, a day after quitting the Bharatiya Janata Party – which she joined eight years ago – citing dissatisfaction with its policies, including the alleged imposition of Hindi.
Ms Natchiyaar – present this morning at a TVK anniversary bash organised by Vijay at a private resort near Chennai – expressed her admiration for her new political boss, calling him “the next MGR”.
The reference was the late iconic actor-politician MG Ramachandran, who was Chief Minister for a decade in the 1970s and ’80s and founded the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, one of the state’s two dominant political parties and currently in the opposition.
She said Vijay’s blend of ‘nationalism and Dravidian policies’ resonated deeply with her, and made TVK the ideal platform for her political future. “Vijay is the biggest hope for Tamil Nadu.”
The jump to the TVK has been seen as the first major fallout of the BJP’s three-language formula push – which the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has slammed as ‘Hindi imposition’. In her resignation letter Ms Natchiyaar wrote, “As a Tamil woman, I cannot accept the imposition of the three-language policy, growing hostility towards Dravidians, and neglect of Tamil Nadu’s needs and aspirations.”
The DMK and AIADMK, traditionally fierce rivals, have united in criticising the BJP’s efforts to ensure implementation of the National Education Policy, which directs all schools to make the teaching of a third language – not necessarily Hindi, but in practice often so – compulsory.
