Kolkata: A day after criticising the Centre for adding Gujarati as a medium for the Joint Entrance Examination (Mains), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that the Centre should have sought proposals from states before selecting regional languages as medium of JEE.
The Central Board of Secondary Education had added Urdu, Marathi and Gujarati in 2014 to the exam medium. However, in 2016, it dropped Urdu and Marathi but continued with Gujarati apart from Hindi and English. The National Testing Agency (NTA) took over the exam in 2019 from the CBSE.
"Joint Entrance Exams so long were conducted in English and Hindi languages. Surprisingly, now only Gujarati language has been added. Such a step is not at all praiseworthy," Banerjee tweeted.
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If Gujarati has to be there, then all regional languages, including Bengali must be there, the chief minister said.
"Our country is India, which is home to so many religions, cultures, languages, creeds and communities. However, maligning all regions and regional languages is the intention of the government at the Centre," Banerjee said.
"I love Gujarati language. But, why have other regional languages been ignored? Why injustice is being meted out to them?" she asked.
Unless the issue was decided "gracefully", there would be strong protests all around as sentiments of people who speak other regional languages would be deeply hurt due to "this injustice," the Trinamool Congress supremo said.
