Saffron brigade lashes out at Arjun
A DAY after the issue of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) serving notice to some teachers for attending RSS sponsored programme was leaked, the issue snowballed into a major controversy with both BJP and VHP lashing out at HRD Minister Arjun Singh for resorting to cheap ?appeasment? gimmicks.
A DAY after the issue of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) serving notice to some teachers for attending RSS sponsored programme was leaked, the issue snowballed into a major controversy with both BJP and VHP lashing out at HRD Minister Arjun Singh for resorting to cheap “appeasment” gimmicks.
“BHU is the property of its founder Madan Mohan Malviya and its authorities have no business to issue such showcause notices, rather the Vice-Chancellor and the HRD minister should have better read and understood its founder thoroughly,” International President of VHP, Ashok Singhal told reporters here.
“BHU teachers are not personal servants of HRD Minister Arjun Singh and the V-C. We respect the V-C, but he should understand what line he is following”, Singhal said in a hard hitting reply to a media query, adding, Mazaak samjha hai kya; thikane laga denge.(He should not take it casually. We will teach him a lesson).
Reacting to the BHU’s notice to teachers, former HRD minister and senior BJP leader Dr Murli Manohar Joshi quoted first Prime Minister of India late Jawahar Lal Nehru saying that, “Educational institutions are centres of ideas and idealism and people of different ideologies should have the right to express their views.”
Asked if he would take up the issue with the HRD minister, Joshi was quick to respond: “Why should I? People will respond to this action.”
Expressing surprise on the showcause notice, Joshi wondered that SIMI activists had occupied high positions but there was no hue and cry whereas simple participation of some teachers in a RSS-sponsored programme had forced the university administration to slap a notice.
“The nationalists in the country will not tolerate this”, he emphatically stated.
He further said that the RSS was even not even banned in 1964 as the show cause notice mentioned. The BJP leader took a dig at vice-chancellor Panjab Singh and the HRD Minister Arjun Singh for naming BHU’s south campus after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
He said the Banaras Hindu University was the property of Madan Mohan Malviya and the name of newly developed south campus should have been named after its founder.