New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) The Nationalist Congress Party Thursday hit out at the BJP government at the Centre over the removal of references to India's first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the new NCERT class 11 political science textbook, asking whether it was done because of his religion.

As part of its "syllabus rationalisation" exercise last year, the NCERT dropped certain portions from the course, including lessons on Gujarat riots, Mughal courts, the Emergency, Cold War and Naxalite movement among others, citing "overlapping" and "irrelevant" as reasons.

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The rationalisation note had no mention of any changes in the class 11 political science textbook.

"Is the BJP trying to erase the name of India's first education minister because of his religion?" asked Clyde Crasto, the national spokesperson of the NCP.

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He said it was "unfortunate" that the BJP-led central government, through the NCERT, is "erasing" Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's name from the education system.

There appeared to be no other reason why the government would mete out such a treatment to the country's first education minister, Crasto said and demanded a clarification from the NCERT on the issue.

"In the old Class 11 NCERT political science textbook, a paragraph in the first chapter says, 'the Constituent Assembly had eight major committees on different subjects. Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad or Ambedkar chaired these Committees'.

"But in the new version of the same textbook, the name of Maulana Azad has been omitted and the same sentence now reads 'Usually, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or BR Ambedkar chaired these committees'," Crasto said.

The NCP spokesperson said that last year, the Minority Affairs Ministry discontinued the Maulana Azad Fellowship, which was started in 2009 to provide financial help to students from six notified minorities for a period of five years.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)