Chennai: The Union government's attempts to promote Sanskrit in schools by making compulsory the three-language formula have been crticised by the Tamil Nadu leaders and DMK president M Karunanidhi.

Recently, Smriti Irani, Human Resources Development Minister, announced that Sanskrit would be made compulsory as a third language in all the CBSE and ICSE schools all over the country.

After this announcement, Karunanidhi claims that the Modi government has been trying to impose Sanskrit indirectly since the time it came to power.

He said in a statement, "Having discussions only at the ministerial-level regarding decisions like this of national importance involving non-Hindi speaking states is condemnable and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should intervene and ensure that linguistic diversity is preserved".

G K Vasan of the Tamil Manila Congress has also opposed this. He says that MHRD has many other problems to be taken care of immediately including improving the infrastructure of colleges, prevent commercialisation of education, rather than thrusting upon a language on school children. He demanded the Centre to retract the decision.(inputs from agencies)

Recently a panel made by the Education Ministry has submitted its report which recommended few things to promote Sanskrit and this was part of those recommendations. (inputs from agencies)