Admitting blunder, government to replace books with Gujarati text

NAGPUR: Putting an end to the controversy over

Gujarati text

in Std VI Geography book of Marathi medium, education minister Vinod Tawde on Monday informed the Council that over 1 lakh such books would be replaced and action would be taken against the Ahmedabad-based printer. He said instructions have been issued to the concerned officials of the education department.

The issue turned into a major controversy on Friday when former minister Sunil Tatkare threatened to commit suicide by consuming poison on the floor of the upper house after he was charged by revenue minister Chandrakant Patil of deliberately changing pages. Tatkare had displayed the book with Gujarati text spread over six to seven pages at a press conference on the steps of the Vidhan Sabha here and accused the BJP-led government of imposing Gujarati culture in state and brainwashing the children.

After chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar’s instructions, Patil tendered an unconditional apology to Tatkare to end the controversy that led to council’s adjournment for a day on Friday following uproar by Opposition members over senior the NCP MLC’s threat to end life.

The chairman had given instructions to the government to investigate the blunder and table the report in house by Monday.

The issue was raised after the leader of Opposition Dhananjay Munde who brought the books to the notice of the upper house. He demanded an immediate probe and action against the printing company. The Opposition members also shouted slogans against government over its affection towards

Gujarat

.

Tawde said the book was published by Balbharti in eight languages, including Gujarati, for the Maharashtra state board under the Sarva Shiksha Bahiyan and it was distributed free to the students across the state.

For this, tenders were floated on an all-India level where about 114 firms responded. Of them, 92% were from Maharashtra while 8% were from other states. “Shloka Printers from Ahmedabad, which had got contract to publish the book in Marathi and Gujarati and other languages, had committed the blunder of mixing pages of two languages. We have sought an explanation from them,” said Tawde.