Trinamul Congress's Rajya Sabha member Saket Gokhale on Friday alleged brazen imposition of Hindi by the Centre after the Meghalaya governor gave a speech in the Assembly in Hindi instead of the state's official language, English.

During Zero Hour, Gokhale demanded that English be used for all government business instead of Hindi, which was being pushed in states where it was not spoken.

He cited the example of the current session of the Meghalaya Assembly where it was announced that governor Phagu Chauhan would deliver his speech in Hindi. This was supported by the BJP in Meghalaya.

“The president of the BJP in Meghalaya even claimed that Hindi is the national language. Let me highlight that Hindi is not the national language,” Gokhale said. The official language of Meghalaya is English. The people of Meghalaya speak Garo and Khasi.

“The governor choosing to speak in Hindi instead of the official language of Meghalaya is a brazen attempt for Hindi imposition,” Gokhale said.

Gokhale said the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill that replaced the Indian Penal Code also suggested an obsession with Hindi. “Outside North India, Hindi is not the native language of crores of people. This is the precise reason why our Constitution kept English as the official language along with Hindi. The imposition of Hindi by the Union government has led a judge of Madras High Court saying ‘I do not want to pronounce the names of the new criminal laws and I am going to call them IPC and CrPC’,” Gokhale said.