Divider Didi apologise: Rupani to Mamata busting JEE language claim

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani hit out against her West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee over her accusation that only Gujarati was allowed in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main exam, and not other regional languages, for question papers. "Dear #DividerDidi, people of your state need development, not such divisive stunts. Now that the facts are out, you should apologise to the people for your lies!" tweeted CM Rupani on Thursday. On Wednesday, CM Banerjee had in a tweet alleged that Joint Entrance Exams (JEE) were conducted in just English, Hindi and Gujarati and not in other regional languages and that "such a step is not at all praiseworthy".

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Vijay Rupani also shared a press release of the National Testing Agency that stated that Gujarat in 2014 agreed to admit their candidates in State Engineering Colleges through JEE (Main) and requested that the exam paper be made available in the Gujarati language. However, in the year 2016, the state withdrew the admission to the state engineering colleges through JEE but it requested the translation of papers in Gujarati be continued. "None of the other states have approached NTA to provide the JEE (Main) question paper in any other Indian National Language," read the statement proving that West Bengal had never in fact applied for joining the programme.

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JEE in 3 languages will be conducted by NTA from this year

The National Testing Agency is set up by the Centre and is given charge to conduct the JEE-Main exams from January 2020. The notification of JEE 2020 states that candidates will have to opt language of Question Paper while filling up the online application form. For all "centre cities", the languages of question papers will be in English and Hindi. But for the "centre cities" in Gujarat, Daman and Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, the languages should be English, Hindi and Gujarati. The JEE-Main is the first round of exams for selection to the prestigious Indian Institue of Technology (IITs). West Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee had on Wednesday informed that the government had sent a letter to the Union HRD ministry requesting it to add Bangla as the medium of the question in the exam.

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