Health Minister of Tamil Nadu Ma Subramanian, on Wednesday, June 1, while addressing the current COVID-19 situation in the state, said that it's mostly students from other states, especially North Indians, who are giving rise to COVID cluster. This comment sparked a controversy. 

It was on the sidelines of a Chennai event when he made these comments. 

As per ANI, the minister said, North Indian students are spreading COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu. Students from Kelambakkam VIT College and Sathya Sai College have got affected by COVID in hostels and classes. In some North Indian states, COVID cases are still increasing.

There are close to 5,600 first-year students in hostels at VIT, the minister shared, as per a report in The Indian Express. He said that 80% of these students are from the Nothern states. He informed that they had returned to the hostels around May 12-13 and when on Tuesday, May 31, RT-PCR samples of 4,192 students was taken, 118 came back positive. On Wednesday, June 1, as many as 45 more students tested positive while 1,500 are yet to be tested. 

While Uttar Pradesh Minister Jitin Prasada called the Tamil Nadu minister’s statement “extremely irresponsible and derogatory”, BJP’s Tamil Nadu Unit President K Annamalai posted on Twitter, “Ministers from our state in DMK Govt compete among themselves on a daily basis to show, ‘who has got lesser brains among them’. Sadly they are letting Tamil people down by their idiocy!”

Ma Subramanian updated that at IIT Madras 237 students have been infected and the situation at Sathya Sai College is now under control.