MP syllabi dispute hots us as Cong, BJP exchange blows

Bhopal, June 27 (UNI) Courtesy a dispute over deletion of certain lessons from Madhya Pradesh's textbooks, the state's ruling BJP today returned fire on the main opposition Congress in the context of a lesson on Mahatma Gandhi while the Congress objected to a suggestion for including one on RSS ideologues Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar.

In a statement, School Education Minister Narottam Mishra pointed fingers at the removal of a lesson on the Father of the Nation from a first-standard textbook in 1997 during Congress tenure.

''Why did that party maintain silence over that deletion? The lesson was again included in 2001. The Congress ruckus, over removal of a lesson on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, is aimed at unalloyed political gain and for pleasing the high command,'' Mr Mishra alleged.

Claiming that the lesson was actually shifted to higher classes' textbooks, he added that Congress regimes turned a Nelson's eye on other personages vis-a-vis syllabi.

In a tit-for-tat response, state Congress General Secretary Manak Agrawal said, ''By expressing a resolve to incorporate a lesson on RSS founder Hedgewar and his successor Golwalkar in Hindi textbooks, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan exposed his government's policy for saffronising education.'' Asking Mr Chouhan to explain what roles Dr Hedgewar and Golwalkar played in nation-building and improving the social system to merit inclusion in the syllabus, the Congress spokesman added that saffronisation of school education would foment a mentality of social schism.

BJP Mahila Morcha state President Anju Makhija felt the government made a farsighted move by including details of great personalities' lives in school syllabi.

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