MYSURU: Education Minister BC Nagesh on Tuesday hit out at the Congress for blaming the ruling BJP state government for saffronising textbooks. “In our view, there is no colour or politics in school textbooks,” he said, saying saffronisation of textbooks was only in the eyes of the Congress. “They (Congress) see colour in everything. Congress fears that they will lose the vote of ‘greens’. That is why they are saying textbooks are saffronised,” he said.
Nagesh said the Congress, during its regime, used the education department for their vote bank. Coming down heavily on erstwhile Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan, he said, “Is Tipu the only freedom fighter? Weren’t Sangoli Rayanna, Kittur Rani Channamma and others freedom fighters?” he asked. He further said Tipu had no respect for Kannada. “Hyder Ali and Tipu betrayed Mysuru kings,” he charged.
On the allegation that poet Kuvempu was disrespected in the revised textbook, Nagesh said the Congress was spreading a false narrative. “The Congress first said chapters pertaining to Tipu, Bhagat Singh and Narayana Guru were dropped. But when they realised that was not the case, they are making this new allegation. Opposition leader Siddaramaiah should apologise for spreading falsehood. We have actually added four lessons of Kuvempu that were dropped during Siddaramaiah’s tenure as CM. Congress must first read and refer to the textbooks before making such false allegations,” he said.
He reiterated that there is no question of revising the textbook again as they have already been printed.
Defending Rohit Chakrathirtha, who heads the textbook review committee, Nagesh said, “Police have submitted the ‘B’ report in that case where Rohit was accused of disrespecting the state anthem. ‘B’ report was given when Siddaramaiah was the CM.”