Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai shared a video featuring Minister of Public Works for Tamil Nadu, E V Velu where he has said the word India has never had any impact on Tamilians.

Annamalai denounced the speech and tweeted saying “DMK Minister Thiru EV Velu expressing what they stood for. This is the true face of parties in the I.N.D.I. Alliance. Once a separatist, always a separatist.”

 In what seems like a public meeting, the minister made the following remarks:

“What is the situation today? The word India never had any impact on us. When has the word India had any impact on us? I am making an open statement.  There wasn’t any such impact on us. I’m talking about some time ago. Where did we have an impact? There was no impact. India is someplace in North. We belong to Tamil Nadu. If possible, we have to create a Dravida Nadu. Our thought process was going in that direction.”

E V Velu was recently in the news for making controversial statements about the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court. He had stated that the Bench is “alms” given by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

According to ANI, he is quoted as saying,

“If the people of the southern district of Tamil Nadu wanted to file a case in the High Court, they needed to come to Chennai. But Karunanidhi made the DMK MPs talk about this in Parliament several times and brought a High Court bench to Madurai. So the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court is Karunanidhi’s alms.”