GUWAHATI: A day after Assam Chief Minister Himanta Bisawa Sarma’s statement against madrassa education, opposition parties in the state accused the CM of trying to “divert people’s attention from the failures of his government”.
“Ahead of elections, they (BJP) had promised to rid Assam of the problems of unemployment, illegal immigration, pollution and flood. Since they could fulfill none of these, they are talking about a madrassa-free Assam to divert people’s attention,” Assam Congress chief Bhupen Kumar Borah told this newspaper.
Speaking at an event in New Delhi on Sunday, Sarma had said: “As long as children are sent to the madrassas, they cannot become doctors and engineers. If children are told they will become only a ‘janab’ (Islamic cleric) by studying in a madrassa and not doctors and engineers, none of them will be willing to go there.”
The CM also stated that there is no problem if children are taught the Quran but the “focus of education should be largely on science, mathematics, biology, botany, geology, etc. Hence, the madrassas should be abolished”.
Lurinjyoti Gogoi, president of Asom Jatiya Parishad, said Sarma’s statement had a “communal design” and he made it to be in the “good books of the RSS”.