Language row ends as Tathagat happy with Tomar’s English letter

Bhubaneswar: The Hindi imposition row which recently sparked a war of words between BJD MP Tathagat Satpathy and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar virtually ended today after the latter shot up a letter to Satpathy in English over identification of Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY).

On receiving the letter written in english unlike earlier one, the Lok Sabha member from Dhenkanal expressed pleasure and described the fresh development as a spirit through his official twitter account.

“Hon'ble Sri Tomar has replied in English! Happy. That's the spirit.” He tweeted by posting  a copy of the letter on the micro blogging site.

The language row started recently when Tomar wrote to the MP in Hindi inviting him to a programme and Satpathy gave a tongue-in-cheek reply by writing back in Odia expressing his inability to comprehend Hindi letter.

The MP had also accused the Minister of attacking other languages by writing in Hindi and requested him to write further in Odia or English as Odisha falls in the ‘C’ category.

According to the Official Languages Rules, communications from a Central Government office to State or Union Territory in Region “C” or to any office or person in such State shall be in English.