Congress corporator and leader of the Opposition in the BMC Rajhans Singh has moved a notice of motion seeking the introduction of Hindi for all administrative purposes. The notice will come up for discussion on Thursday in the General Body Meeting of the BMC. The party had only recently demanded that Bhojpuri movies be exempted from paying entertainment tax, a relief that until now was granted only to Marathi and Gujarati movies and plays along with the tamasha shows.

Singh’s notice says that while Marathi is the mother-tongue of Maharashtra, daily work in the BMC is conducted in Marathi as well as English and Hindi too should now be introduced. “Hindi is our national language and therefore agenda and documents should also be published in the language. Many corporators in the BMC are Hindi-speaking people, for whom documents in Hindi will be helpful,” he said.

Singh also wants speeches delivered in Hindi by elected representatives to be recorded in the same language. As per existing rules, while meetings' minutes are being compiled, speeches in Hindi are translated into Marathi. Singh said the Hindi speeches should be recorded in Hindi and then translated into Marathi or English, so that the meaning is not altered.