BJP to table Select Com report, but will the MoI bill be passed?
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 02 January 2016 22:06 IST
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to meet and place the Select Committee report on the Medium of Instruction issue in the five-day winter Assembly session, beginning from 11 January.
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar however is not sure if the Goa Education Bill in this regard would ultimately be passed in the same session.
“Both the things are not in the hands of the government. First part is in the hands of the select committee and then the Assembly should pass it”, he told goanews.com.
The BJP legislators, ministers and party’s core committee today met at Hotel Mandovi, as decided last week, to discuss the controversial issue of continuing grants to English medium primary schools run by minority institutions.
The saffron party is under pressure from the party cadres as well as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which has begun a state-wide campaign under the banner of Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch, opposing the amendment bill.
However, the party has already assured FORCE, demanding to make it a law, to continue the grants and pass the bill in this session.
“I am personally of the opinion that the grants continued to minority institutions should not be stopped”, Parsekar told goanews.com.
With the pressure mounting from both the sides, he says, the party needs to think of a via media which would be acceptable to both the camps.
But he appeared to be not sure what the via media could be.
However, today’s meeting decided that the select committee should meet and place its report before the Assembly in the winter session.
“The select committee will meet once in the next eight days. I don’t think more than one meeting is required to prepare a report since the issue is well-discussed everywhere”, he said.
The committee is sitting over the bill for the last 16 months, since August last year, having only two meeting, which practically discussed nothing.
Parsekar, who heads the committee, is however now planning to submit the report with all the views expressed by the members of the committee.
“I will place a report with all kinds of views expressed by the members. Let the Assembly decide what to do with the report”, the CM said.
Sudin Dhawalikar, PWD minister and leader of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, has already decided to support CM’s view of continuing grants to English medium primary schools.
But some members of the BJP, like Dr Pramod Sawant, who is also the member of the select committee, don’t agree with the stand.
The committee, besides CM Parsekar, has 7 more members - Nilesh Cabral, Pramod Sawant, Kiran Kandolkar and Rajan Naik of the BJP, Lavoo Mamledar of the MGP and Mauvin Godinho and Digambar Kamat of the Congress.
It appears that the winter session would see the select committee report tabled in the House, but the Goa Education Amendment bill simply may not come up for passing in this session.
Heh ?
So Christian people can use my tax money to start a English school but I being Hindu cant start one because I am Hindu ?
This is gross injustice to Hindus.
Uniformity is the foundation of law. If government expects people to respect law it should learn to pass laws that are respectable in first place.