Textbook errors: Congress seeks Nityananda Gond’s ouster

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Tuesday announced a statewide agitation demanding the resignation of School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond over alleged large-scale errors in government school textbooks. Announcing the protest programme at Congress Bhavan here, AICC Odisha in-charge Lalji Desai said Congress leaders and workers would stage demonstrations across the state, seeking the minister’s resignation and comprehensive reforms in the education sector.

Announcing the protest programme at Congress Bhavan here, AICC Odisha in-charge Lalji Desai said Congress leaders and workers would take to the streets across the state to press for the minister’s resignation and comprehensive reforms in the education sector. Expressing concern over the reported mistakes in school textbooks, Desai said children should not be forced to protest over issues affecting their education.

Instead, he said, the Congress would spearhead a statewide movement to hold the government accountable. Desai alleged that the BJP government, which came to power on the promise of protecting ‘Odia Asmita’ (Odia pride), was now undermining Odisha’s identity through repeated lapses in governance. He claimed that the 1,678 errors detected in school textbooks were too serious to be dismissed as routine mistakes. Among the glaring inaccuracies, he said, were photographs of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly being printed in place of the Odisha Legislative Assembly and an image of Hampi being used instead of the Konark Temple.

The Congress leader further alleged that nearly 10,000 government schools in the state had been shut down while around 80,000 teaching posts remained vacant. Reiterating the party’s stand, OPCC President Bhakta Charan Das warned that the Congress would intensify its agitation if the minister failed to resign within seven days. He said the party would call for an ‘Odisha Bandh’ if its demand was ignored. Das questioned why the state education minister should not resign over what he described as “unpardonable mistakes” in school textbooks, arguing that if a Union education minister could resign for negligence, the same standard should apply to the state minister.