Home minister Amit Shah on Friday told Parliament that Hindi had no competition with any other Indian language and was “only a friend of other languages”, his remark coming against the backdrop of a “Hindi imposition” row.

Shah informed the Rajya Sabha that from December he would do all correspondence with chief ministers, MPs and common people in their respective languages.

During a debate on the working of the home ministry, MDMK member Vaiko and CPM member John Brittas had expressed concern over the alleged imposition of Hindi in southern states.

“Hindi has no competition with any Indian language. Hindi is a friend of all Indian languages. All Indian languages get strengthened due to Hindi. And Hindi also gets strengthened due to all Indian languages,” Shah said.

“After December, all my communications with any individual, or chief minister, or minister or member of Parliament of any state will be in the respective language of the state,” Shah said.

Attacking the Opposition for raking up the language row, he said: “Some people are running shops in the name of language to hide their corruption. Each language of India is an ornament of its culture. They are saying we are against the southern languages. How can we go against the language of any state?... I come from Gujarat. Nirmala Sitharaman is from Tamil Nadu,” Shah said.

The DMK-led Tamil Nadu government and the Centre have been at loggerheads over the implementation of the new National Education Policy and the three-language formula proposed under it.

Shah said the Centre had made provisions for imparting medical and engineering education in Indian languages and accused the Tamil Nadu government of not having the courage to provide medical and engineering education in Tamil.

“You (Tamil Nadu government) have commercial interest. You cannot do it. But when our government comes, we will provide engineering and medical education in Tamil in Tamil Nadu,” Shah said.

Assembly elections are due in Tamil Nadu next year.

Appearing to criticise English-medium education, Shah said: “I want to tell those who are spewing venom in the name of language that you love a language which is used thousands of kilometres away from us, but you do not like Indian languages. How will the system of this country run? A lot has been done to divide the nation in the name of language. It should stop now. The nation has left this issue behind.”