Trinamool Congress formalises structure of party's Hindi cell

The Trinamool Congress on Monday formalised the structure of the Hindi Cell of the party aimed at creating an open platform for bringing together all Hindi speaking people of the state.

Speaking at a news conference, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Trivedi said today (Monday) being the Hindi Diwas, it has been decided to give a formal structure to the cell which had been functioning in an informal manner when Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011.

Trivedi, who has been appointed chairman of the cell, said our chief minister Mamata Banerjee sees all the languages as a bouquet of flowers and the state has kept its doors open to all kinds of different language speaking people.

He rued "it is sad that Bengali still has not given the status of a classical language which ought to be", adding that it is also imperative to hold the national joint entrance examination in Bengali as well." "We hope the Bengali language will be included in the entrance examination questionnaire from next year", he said.

Editor of a Hindi daily and former Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Gupta, who has been made the president of the proposed cell, said Bengal is the melting pot of culture.

"This is Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's land where all the languages are respected. There are lakhs of Hindi speaking people residing in the state and all are Bengalis in every respect", he said.

He said West Bengal is the only non-Hindi speaking state to have a Hindi university, besides numerous Hindi medium schools and colleges.

He said that the Hindi cell will try to unite people and defeat the divisive forces trying to create fissures among the people.

Both Trivedi and Gupta denied that there are any political inclinations involved in formalising the cell at this point of time.

Trivedi said the cell would strengthen Hindi at the grassroots level.