Kolkata: The president of West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE), Mahua Das, has come in the eye of storm for highlighting the religious identity of the topper during the announcement of Class 12 results, with political leaders claiming that the move was in tandem with the TMC's appeasement politics.
A senior Council official, however, said Das just wanted to underline the fact that a girl from a minority community has "fought social and economic hurdles" to become the topper. Das, without taking her name, had said on Thursday a Muslim girl from Murshidabad district scored 499 out of 500 and emerged as the lone topper in the Class 12 results. She had also stressed that no merit list was prepared this year.
Taking umbrage at her statement, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya tweeted: "In Mamata Banerjee's Bengal, appeasement politics hits a new low, when a board official reduced academic achievement of a class 12th girl student to her religious identity.... she repeatedly mentioned that the girl is a Muslim," Malviya said. Similarly, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Chowdhury said it had a jarring effect on the ears when the Council, during its press conference, said a Muslim girl came first.
Eminent educationists, too, criticised Das for mixing merit with religion.
Amal Mukhopadhyay, the former principal of erstwhile Presidency College, said:
"Das may have made the remark inadvertently, feeling emotional about the feat of the girl, but she made a cardinal mistake by mixing merit with religion."