Vadodara: The primary education committee of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has once again waded into controversy by bringing out notebooks with messages promoting the BJP-RSS ideology.
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This time, the committee is distributing notebooks that laud the slogan 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and have a picture of Bharatiya Jan Sangh ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.
In the past too, the committee had brought out notebooks with a picture of Bharat Mata as represented by the RSS. The covers of the notebooks have also shown Modi alongside Swami Vivekananda attempting to draw a comparison between the two. Even school bags with Modi's photograph were distributed by the committee before few years.
The committee chairman, Keyur Rokadiya, said that 1.6lakh such notebooks would be distributed.
"There should be no objection to 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'. In fact, the quote by Deendayalji on the notebook explains this," he said. Upadhyay has been quoted on the back cover of the notebooks stating that the foundation of our nationality was Bharat Mata. It adds that without the word Mata, Bharat would merely be a piece of land. Rokadiya added that Upadhyay's picture was placed on the cover as it was his birth centenary year.
The Congress at the other end sees this as an attempt to promote the RSS ideology. "It is an attempt to influence the children to promote RSS views on the Indian culture and history," said Nilesh Brahmbhatt, Vadodara city Congress spokesperson.