BJP’s national general secretary H. Raja has reminded DMK’s working president M.K. Stalin that the latter would do well to remember the reality that support for separatist demands is a punishable crime under the Indian Penal Code.

Regional press was full of reports yesterday stating that Stalin had expressed his support to the ‘Dravida Naadu’ idea of bringing together all the South Indian States – Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Telengana – which had been nursing grievances of ‘ill-treatment’ by the BJP-le Centre on different counts.

Stalin, however, sought to play it down yesterday by stating that his support to the request had been misquoted to show as if he was a traitor.  It may be recalled that EVR Periyar headed the ‘Dravida Naadu’ demand prior to and after Independence; the same was taken up with vigour by Periyar’s protégé and veteran Dravidian leader C.N. Annathurai, who separated from Periyar’s Dravidar Kazhagam to form the DMK.

TDP MP Muralimohan, upset with the Centre’s rejection of the request for granting special status to Andhra Pradesh, meted out a threat to the Centre by stating that successive rejection of normal requests of South Indian States by the Centre might just ‘push’ these States to put forth a demand for creation of a ‘separate State’ by merging all the South Indian States together.

Tweeting on his Twitter account, H. Raja said that the whole world was aware as to how the ‘Dravida Naadu’ protesters backtracked several decades back once they realized that they would face legal action for doing so. “However, it appears that some persons (read: Stalin) need to be reminded that laws punishing separatist demands are still in force!” Raja’s tweet said thus.