Abhishek calls for movement across state demanding inclusion of Bengali in JEE 2020 question paper

Kolkata: Trinamool Youth Congress president and party MP Abhishek Banerjee on Monday urged party workers to launch movement all over Bengal, demanding inclusion of Bengali in the framing of question paper for Joint Entrance Examination (main) 2020.

He was addressing a gathering at Gandhi statue in Mayo Road on Monday afternoon. Party leaders including Subrata Mukherjee, Sadhan Pande, Baiswanor Chatterjee, Tapas Roy, Santanu Sen and Nirmal Maji were present at the meeting.

It may be recalled that Banerjee had earlier demanded inclusion of the language to frame question papers for JEE 2020.

Banerjee said the ministry of Human Resource Development had said that it had not received any letter from the state government requesting it to include Bengali to frame the question papers. The state Education department, however, did send a letter to the HRD ministry on November 7.

"The Centre withdraws the paramilitary forces from the Maoist-affected areas without informing the state government. On many occasions the Centre does not talk to the state government, but now to cover up their fault they are putting the responsibility on the state government," he said, adding: "We do not mind if Gujarati is included in framing the question papers, but the ministry should come up with a statement on why it is being included along with English and Hindi."

Banerjee said after Hindi, the highest number of people in India talk in Bengali. Bengali has rich culture and heritage that has been enriched by Sri Ramakrishna and Rabindranath, along with a galaxy of thinkers.

He alleged that an attempt has been made to malign Bengal. "BJP destroyed the statue of Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and later, names of 12 lakh Bengali people were dropped from the list of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. Attempts have been made to target the Bengalis," he maintained.