NEW DELHI: Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said that socialist stalwart Karpoori Thakur had taken the decision to promote Hindi five decades ago, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has formulated the New Education Policy (NEP) to ensure that the current generation gets education in their own languages by giving equal importance to them.
Addressing an event in the national capital to mark the 100th birth anniversary of the former Bihar chief minister, Shah said, “Thakur worked for the promotion of Hindi in administration and academics five decades ago. Now, the Modi government has been promoting local languages under the New Education Policy.”
Noting that the decision to confer the Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur, who is affectionately called ‘Jannayak’, is an honour to crores of poor people belonging to the backward and Dalit communities, Shah insisted that the Modi government has been giving a strong push for the development of the OBCs.
It is to be noted here that the Union government had on Tuesday announced the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, for two-time Bihar chief minister Thakur, who was considered the leading light of OBC politics in Bihar.
Shah said that Modi has been a strong proponent of development of people belonging to Other Backward Classes and that 27 ministers in his government belonged to the category.
The Home Minister also mentioned that the Modi government has revised the OBC list, given rights to the states to prepare their own OBC list, provided reservation to the OBCs in IITs and IIMs.
On (January) 22nd, PM Modi did ‘Ram Kaaj’ (Ram’s work) and on 23rd, he connected Lord Ram and the poor by doing ‘Gareeb Kaaj’ (Work of the poor). On 22nd, the dream of all the devotees of Ram Lalla was realised in the grand temple, and on the 23rd, the wish of crores of poor, deprived, backward, Dalits and tribals was fulfilled after ‘Bharat Ratna’ was given to Karpoori Thakur,” Shah said, adding that the government has sincerely been working to uplift the poor.
In the last 10 years, it has given electricity connections to three crore people, free LPG connection to 10 crore people, piped water to 14 crore people and free food grains to 80 crore people, he said.
