BJP tagged as communal party: Tripura govt withdraws school textbook

, April 30: The Left Front government in

has decided to withdraw a state government school textbook in which the

was tagged as a 'communal party', an official said in Agartala on Wednesday.

A Bengali medium political science book for Class XI has a chapter titled 'India's party system' which said one of the important characteristics of India's party system is the existence of communal parties.

"Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha and Shiv Sena are among such parties, besides the BJP. Parties like the BJP, though not based on religion, succeeded in capturing power through communalisation of politics," the textbook said.

The decision was taken after BJP in a letter sent to Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath in March, alleged that the secondary level political science textbook had branded the party as communal to brainwash students.

In turn, the Election Commission referred the matter to the Tripura government and the TBSE took the decision later.

"We are going for a new syllabus. We would not incorporate that textbook in the new syllabus. It was an unfortunate mistake," Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE) president Amitava Debroy said, according to a IBN Live report.

"It was not our intention to malign any political party in the school curriculum. The matter was overlooked by us. However, now the issue is dead", he added.

On the basis of that textbook authored by Nimai Pramanik, the authorities of Arundhuti Nagar Higher Secondary School recently asked the students to mention the names of the communal parties of the country.

Students were asked to choose one among the four options. These are : 1) Congress, 2) CPI-M, 3) BJP and 4) BSP.
"According to the textbook the right answer is the BJP," said State BJP convenor Prasenjit Chakraborty Chakraborty in a letter.

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