Gujarat Govt. not to withdraw circular

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD, JAN. 20. Even as the Congress today took out a protest rally, the controversy over the Gujarat Government's circular to schools to subscribe to a pro-RSS journal took a new turn with the education department insisting that the circular had not been withdrawn.

A spokesperson of the department said a second circular withdrawing the previous one was drafted at the instance of the then secretary, Mr. A.M. Bhardwaj, but was not issued to the schools. Since Mr. Bhardwaj was suspended the next day in connection with an alleged irregularity when he was the secretary of the civil supplies department in 1998, the revised circular stood cancelled. Considering the stand taken by the ruling BJP on the issue, there was no question of withdrawing the original circular, the spokesperson said.

Apparently encouraged by the success of the Opposition agitation last year, which had forced the Government to withdraw a similar pro-RSS circular, the Congress launched a State-wide agitation today with a rally in Ahmedabad led by the pradesh Congress president, Mr C.D. Patel, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Mr. Amarsinh Chaudhary. ``Copies'' of the circular were burnt at the rally. Party leaders said they would not rest till it was withdrawn.

The BJP official spokesperson, Mr. Bharat Pandya, while reiterating Government support for the magazine, said there was no question of withdrawing the circular since it had only included the journal in the list of recognised publications, leaving it to the school managements' discretion whether or not to subscribe to it.

Meanwhile, several prominent citizens and literateurs in a letter to the Governor, Mr. Sunder Singh Bhandari, requested him to take up with the Government the withdrawal of the circular immediately and ensure that the Government machinery desisted from ``such dangerously communal deeds.''

Meanwhile, the United Christian For Human Rights convenor, Father Cedric Prakash, said his organisation was likely to move the Gujarat High Court on Monday for directions to withdraw the circular if the Government failed to take the initiative till then.

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