Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi general secretary and Villupuram MP D. Ravikumar on Saturday claimed that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech, incorrectly said that the Aathichoodi was sung 3,000 years ago by Avvaiyar.
He said that the Sangam era Avvaiyar and the author of Aathichoodi were different people.
“The Avvai who sang Aathichoodi belonged to the 12th century,” he said.
He added: “When evidence is emerging increasingly that Indus Valley Civilization is Tamil civilization and that the alphabet found there are ancient Tamil alphabet as has been acknowledged by top scholars such as Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan, Ms. Sitharaman referring to IVC as ‘Saraswati’ IVC is an attempt to associate it with the Vedic period by connecting it to the imaginary Saraswati river mentioned in the Vedas. We mustn’t allow this.”
