india

Updated: Nov 07, 2019 01:17 IST

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday opposed the introduction of Gujarati in Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and said that the Centre intended to malign regions and regional languages.

The JEE is the main entrance exam for admission to engineering colleges across the country, including the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, and was conducted in English and Hindi till now. Member of Parliament from Diamond Harbour Abhishek Banerjee demanded that Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Marathi should be introduced as other medium of examination. In a series of tweets, the chief minister said she loved the Gujarati language but asked why regional languags like Bengali were ignored. “Our country is India, which is home to so many religions, cultures, languages, creeds and communities. However, maligning all regions and regional languages is the intention of the government at the centre,” Banerjee said on Wednesday.

“JEE so long was conducted in English and Hindi. Now only Gujarati has been added. Such a step is not at all praiseworthy. Why have other regional languages been ignored? Why injustice is being meted out to them? ” she added. In a separate tweet, Abhisek Banerjee, who is the chief minister’s nephew wrote, “Constitution mandates equality for all. JEE (Mains) 2020 must be conducted in all regional languages.” Communist Party of India (Marxist) Lok Sabha MP and the party’s politburo member Mohammed Salim said, “Gujarati was never a language for higher education. This is a well thought out scheme by the Rashtriya Shayamsevak Sangh to establish cultural domination and break the nation into small units. They are playing with fire.”

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders from West Bengal whom HT contacted were not willing to react to the development. However, a senior official in the Human Resource Development ministry who did not wish to be named said Gujarat used JEE scores for state engineering college admissions. As per 2011 census report, Bengali was the second most widely spoken language in India after Hindi, and was followed by Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Gujarati.