A debate over the National Education Policy (NEP) rocked the Legislative Council on Monday, with Congress MLC B K Hariprasad alleging that NEP may be the way to impose Hindi language.

When Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan was replying to a question by MLC Kavatagimath Mahantesh Mallikarjun on NEP in the Council, Hariprasad intervened and alleged that he has doubts that NEP would be used to impose Hindi. A few other members also joined him and said that mother tongue should be given priority while implementing NEP in the state.

Defending that there was no such mention in the NEP, the DCM clarified that there is a direction in the NEP to give importance to mother tongue and the state government will follow it. He rubbished the allegations of Hindi imposition and requested the Chair to expunge them from the records.

BJP MLC A H Vishwanath took objection on appointing former Chief Secretary S V Ranganath as the head of the Task Force on implementation of NEP. “Ranganath is associated with Coffee Day Group, which is involved in a financial fraud that also led to the suicide of its founder. How can a person associated with such a firm be appointed to head a task force related to education? Was there nobody else to take it up,” he questioned. Ashwath Narayan, however, maintained that Ranganath himself was not involved in any case.