Gujarati in JEE row: Kailash Vijayvargiya calls Mamata 'divider didi'

BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya on Thursday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and called her "divider didi" as she questioned the decision of including Gujarati as an optional language in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) main paper.

Taking to Twitter, Vijayvargiya posted the statement released by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which clarifies the grounds for conducting the exam in Gujarati, Hindi and English across India.

"Dear Divider Didi, dividing people in the name of the language is not going to multiply your votes! To set the record straight, you never requested the exam to be held in Bengali!" he tweeted.

The BJP general secretary's response comes after Banerjee had slammed the Centre for including Gujarati as a medium of instruction in the JEE by the NTA.

Stating that the decision is "not praiseworthy" and shows that "maligning all regional languages is the intention of the government", Banerjee demanded inclusion of all regional languages including Bengali as the medium for the exam.

Earlier in the day, the NTA said that no state other than Gujarat has approached it to provide paper in any other Indian national language.

In 2013, only Gujarat agreed to admit their candidates in the state engineering colleges of Gujarat through JEE and requested that the paper be made available in the Gujarati language, the agency said.

In 2014, Maharashtra also opted for admitting the engineering candidates in the state engineering colleges through JEE and requested to provide the question paper in the language of Marathi and Urdu. Later in 2016, both these states withdrew the admission to the state engineering colleges through JEE (Main). Therefore, the translation in Marathi and Urdu language was stopped.

"However, the translation of JEE (Main) question paper in the Gujarati language continued on the request of Gujarat state. None of the other States has approached NTA to provide the JEE (Main) question paper in any other Indian National Language," the agency said.

( With inputs from ANI )