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Tamil Nadu Minister Durai Murugan has stoked a row with his North-South divide remarks as he alleged that a woman can marry 10 men in North India while a man marries only one woman in the South.
Tamil Nadu Minister Durai Murugan stokes row (PTI File Photo)
Tamil Nadu Minister Durai Murugan stoked controversy on Thursday as he alleged that there is a culture in North India to have multiple spouses and threatened to “cut off” tongues of those insulting Tamil.
His remarks deepened the North-South divide that has been a subject of debate in the political corridors. His statement comes at a time when the Centre and Tamil Nadu government are engaging in heated exchanges over the “Hindi imposition” and proposed delimitation exercise.
Addressing a public meeting, the Minister claimed that North Indian traditions, unlike Tamil customs, endorse polygamy and polyarchy.
CM @mkstalin must apologize to our North Indian brothers and sisters!DMK’s senior-most leader and Minister Duraimurugan has insulted them by calling them pigs. This kind of derogatory remark is unacceptable and exposes DMK’s deep-seated hatred.
Stalin’s silence is proof of his… pic.twitter.com/IcOkIKoQ4f
— Amar Prasad Reddy (@amarprasadreddy) March 12, 2025
“In our culture, a man marries only one woman. However, in North India, a woman can have multiple husbands – sometimes five or even ten. Similarly, five men can marry one woman. This is their tradition. If one leaves, another takes their place,” Murugan said in an apparent reference to Draupadi from the Mahabharata.
The delimitation row is the heart of the controversy, in which the Tamil Nadu government is apprehensive about losing the number of seats in the Parliament if the process is executed on the basis of the new population data.
“The Congress and other parties that governed at the Centre urged us to control the population, and we followed their directives. As a result, our population has declined. However, in North India, the population did not decrease. Families there continued to have 17, 18, or even 19 children, as if they had no other responsibilities,” he said.
He made a reference to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s remark against DMK MPs in the Parliament and said, “Coming from this stinking culture, and you are calling us uncivilised? We will cut your tongue. Be careful”.
- Location :
Tamil Nadu, India, India
