TMC sets up party's Hindi cell

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) set up Hindi Cell with party's Rajya Sabha member Dinesh Trivedi as its chairman and Vivek Gupta as its president to reach out to the Hindi speaking people in Bengal.

The cell will have a three tier structure with a state-level coordination committee, district-level and block-level coordination committees. While addressing a press conference Trivedi said that the cell was constituted in 2011 and on Monday a formal structure was given to it.

He said the Hindi speaking people are a part of Bengal

and the cell has been reconstituted to ensure all round

development in Bengal. "The formation of the cell has nothing

to do with politics. The Bengali speaking people along

with those speaking Hindi, Telegu, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi,

Maithili will all be the members of the cell" he said

adding, "unlike the BJP language is not used to divide people

but to consolidate them and give an expression to their aspirations."

Vivek Gupta, president of the cell said there are 350 schools in Kolkata whose medium is Hindi.

Hindi Divas which falls on Monday is celebrated in Bengal for many years. Functions are held every year to celebrate the birth anniversary of Munshi Premchand and Hindi drama festival is a part of Kolkata's culture.

In 2012, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had Hindi as one of the official languages in Bengal.

In September, 2019 the state government had cleared the proposal to set up a Hindi university in Howrah. In 2014 the first Hindi medium general degree college was set up in Banarhat, Jalpaiguri followed by Birsa Munda Hindi College in Hatighisa in north Bengal.

He said the cell would try to rope in as many people as people across the state.