With barely a day to go before Tamil Nadu goes to the polls, Tamil Language Minister, Ma Foi K. Pandiarajan landed in a controversy over a video tweet featuring an aspiring medical student who died by suicide in 2017, after her plea for canceling the NEET exam was struck down by the Supreme Court.
The controversial video, showing the dead student's images, with an audio message promoting the ruling AIADMK, was tweeted from the minister's official Twitter handle.
Pandiarajan is seeking re-election from the Avadi assembly constituency.
Family seeks legal action
On Sunday, Anitha's brother S. Manirathinam filed a complaint, under the Information Technology Act, against the minister with the Superintendent of Police, Ariyalur district, stating that his sister's pictures and footage were used in an unauthorized manner.
He also wrote to the Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer and sought action against the minister.
However, the minister later released a video in which he claimed that the controversial video was posted on Twitter without his permission or knowledge. The video was subsequently deleted from his Twitter handle.
What happened to Anitha?
Despite scoring 1,176 marks out of 2000 marks in her intermediate board exams, Anitha had failed to make the cut in NEET. She then approached the Supreme Court where her plea for cancellation of the entrance test was turned down. With her dreams of studying to become a doctor dashed, she ended her life in September 2017, which led to widespread resentment in the state over the NEET exam.
(With inputs from IANS)
