The Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (11 September) held protests all over the state at offices of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HRCE) department, demanding the resignation of HRCE minister P Sekar Babu for being silent during Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks calling for the eradication of Sanatana Dharma.

In the wake of the protests against Udhayanidhi’s remarks in which he equated Sanatana Dharma with diseases like dengue, malaria and corona, BJP state president K Annamalai had stated that the party would gherao HRCE offices across the state if Sekar Babu did not resign by 10 September.

In a post on X, (formerly Twitter), Annamalai had said that in the same conference, prior to Udhayanidhi’s speech, Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) leader K Veeramani had stated that Sanatana Dharma and Hinduism were the same and so Sekar Babu had lost the moral right to continue as minister as he had remained silent during Udhayanidhi’s remarks.

Udhayanidhi had said, “I thank the organisers for giving me the opportunity to speak at this conference to eradicate Sanatana Dharma.

“I congratulate the organisers for calling the conference as ‘eradicate Sanatana Dharma’ instead of ‘opposing Sanatana Dharma.’

“There are some things which we have to eradicate and we can’t merely oppose. Mosquitoes, dengue fever, malaria, corona, all these are things which we cannot oppose, we have to eradicate them. Sanatanam is also like this.

“Eradicating and not opposing Sanatanam should be our first task.

“What is Sanatanam? The name Sanatanam has come from Sanskrit. Sanatanam is against equality and social justice. The meaning of Sanatanam is nothing but ‘permanence’, something which cannot be changed. Nobody can question. This is the meaning of Sanatanam.”