The ruling Congress in Punjab and the Opposition are at loggerheads over the issue of alleged removal of chapters related to the era of Sikh Gurus from the Class 12 history books of the Punjab School Education Board.
While Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday dismissed the allegations of Opposition parties and accused them of playing politics on an issue involving religious sentiments, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) decided to convene a meeting of its core committee on May 3 to formulate an action plan for reinserting the removed chapters back in the books.
“Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s baseless statements on the issue has the potential to disturb peace and harmony in the State,” said Capt. Amarinder, as he also condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for joining the campaign against the government without bothering to verify the facts.
Countering the claims of the Opposition, the Chief Minister said: “It was during the Akalis regime in 2014 when the decision to realign the courses with the NCERT syllabus was taken. Further, the SGPC was party to all the discussions on the issue since my government took over in March last year.”
‘SGPC invited’
The Chief Minister said that soon after taking over the State’s reins, his government had written to Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in March 2017 for discussion on the issue of the history course realignment, given the sensitive nature of the subject.
“In response, the SGPC had deputed Prof. Paramveer Singh of Panjabi University in Patiala, who attended all the meetings held to deliberate on the matter,” said Mr. Singh, adding that SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal was deliberately hiding the facts on the issue for the sake of promoting his vested political ambitions.
“Their (opposition) charges that the chapters on the Sikh Gurus were missing from the books were an obvious lie which they were trying to peddle as a truth with their false propaganda,” he said.
‘CM deceiving people’
Meanwhile, Akali Dal leader and former Education Minister Daljit Cheema said that instead of admitting the mistake, the Chief Minister was trying to deceive the Punjabis by stating that these chapters had been shifted to the education board’s Class 11 history book.
