'Include Bengali as a language for conducting JEE Main exams': Mamata Banerjee rallies against Centre over 'language bias'

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Monday took out rallies across West Bengal to protest against the central government’s alleged bias against regional languages in conducting JEE (Main) examination for admission to engineering colleges.

The protest programme was, however, not held in areas which were affected by Cyclone ‘Bulbul’, with party workers engaged in relief work. TMC supporters, carrying posters and placards, took out rallies in all the blocks and districts and shouted slogans against the BJP government at the Centre, demanding that Bengali be also included as a language for conducting the JEE (Main) examination.

Chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee last week had announced that her party would hold state-wide protests on this issue on 11 November. The TMC leadership has also organised a mass rally at Mayo Road area in central Kolkata on Monday. Senior TMC leader and nephew of Mamata Banerjee, Abhishek Banerjee, is likely to attend the rally.

The TMC supremo is up in arms against the Centre over inclusion of only Gujarati language in the JEE (Main) examination. Noting that she had nothing against Gujarati language, she had said that other regional languages should also have been included in the list.

She had claimed that states were not consulted on the decision, a charge dismissed by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the examination.