Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Local Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) staged a protest outside the office of the Additional District Magistrate (ADM), demanding the resignation of School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond over alleged irregularities in the preparation and distribution of new government school textbooks.
The party also reiterated its demand for the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, holding him responsible for the alleged irregularities in the NEET examination question paper controversy.
Addressing the protest, CPI(M) Odisha State Secretary Suresh Panigrahi Tuesday alleged that the state government, while implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, hurriedly prepared and distributed 55 primary school textbooks without involving experienced authors, reviewers, editors or proofreaders.
He claimed that the books were prepared by inexperienced teachers from Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools using artifi cial intelligence (AI), and alleged that the textbooks contained superstitious, communal and undemocratic content.
Panigrahi described the issue as a serious injustice to students studying in government schools and demanded that the S&ME minister either resign immediately or be removed from office. Following the protest, a CPI (M) delegation submitted a memorandum addressed to Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi through the ADM, seeking action against those responsible for the alleged textbook lapses.