Senior-Congress-leader Shashi Tharoor said the south and northeast of India will become "irrelevant" in comparison to the north, as the national narrative is increasingly becoming a Hindi-speaking one. Shashi Tharoor, speaking at the Kolkata Literature Festival, said idiom of the Indian narrative has "overwhemingly" moved to the north, "the so-called BIMARU states such as Bihar, MP, UP, moving from places like Bengal or Kerala".