Hindi is not India's national language, will never let it happen: Former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: At a time when Union Home Minister Amit Shah is trying to push Hindi as an official language, Karnataka’s opposition party leader and senior Congress functionary Siddaramaiah has put his foot down saying Hindi is not India's national language.

In this context, the former chief minister Friday accused the ruling BJP of trying to unleash its agenda of "cultural terrorism" against non-Hindi speaking states.

"As a Kannadiga, I take strong offence to @HMOIndia @AmitShah's comment on Official language & medium of communication. Hindi is not our National Language & we will never let it to be," Siddaramaiah tweeted with the hashtag "#IndiaAgainstHindiImposition".

He slammed Shah accusing him of betraying his home state Gujarat and mother-tongue Gujarati for Hindi. All this is Shah’s political agenda, he said.

This is not the first time Siddaramaiah has strongly objected to imposing Hindi in Karnataka. The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu too has taken a strong stand against Hindi.

Shah on Thursday had said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.

Presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.