Nitish Kumar and Kapil Sibal in Patna. Telegraph picture

Motihari, April 20: Union human resource development department (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal’s displeasure to setting up the Central University of Bihar (CUB) in Motihari during the foundation laying ceremony of Patna Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) yesterday has irked the sentiments of residents of Champaran.

They have termed the incident as disregard to Gandhi and double standards of education adopted by the HRD minister in the country.

In an urgent meeting convened in this regard by Mahatma Gandhi Kendriya Vishwavidyalaya Sangharsh Morcha here on Wednesday, people from all sections present there resolved to stage a mass dharna near Gandhi Maidan on April 21, a public meeting on April 24, a call for two-day Champaran bandh and finally challenge the matter in the Supreme Court.

They have also charged Sibal with ignoring the role of Champaran in the Independence movement of this country.

“Every section of the society has expressed solidarity with the firm stand of Nitish Kumar and regarding his logical stand that in any case, CUB would be set up only at Motihari and no where else in the state,” said founder president of Mahatma Gandhi Kendriya Vishwavidyalaya Sangharsh Morcha and former CPM MLA Ramashraya Prasad Singh.

He lamented that Sibal’s statement has maligned the privileged image that the Father of the Nation enjoys in this country. On one hand, where preparations were afoot to celebrate the centenary celebration of Champaran Satyagraha at the national-level, a powerful minister in the Congress govern- ment has shattered the Gandhian dreams of education in this country,” said Singh.

People like Sibal who have been gathering political mileage from Gandhi’s name, instead of any sense of gratefulness to him, have perhaps completely forgotten that after setting up the first ever basic school at Barharwa Lakhansen village, one by one around five dozen basic schools were founded by Bapu in Champaran, said Singh.

He added that those cry much of Gandhi in the public gatherings, were in fact reluctant to the thoughts, ideas and dreams propounded by Gandhi for uplift of the last person in society.

Regional imbalance has become a grave threat to the democratic fiber of this country. The statement of Sibal may further aggravate the regional imbalance, feared the CPM leader.

The union HRD minister has miserably failed to cash an opportunity, which he could have availed by paying heed to the growing public demand for a CUB at Motihari, said he and added that it was unfortunate that the ideas and concept of Kapil Sibal regarding education policy of the central government, rotates only around 15 per cent metropolitan population of this country, where as the rest 85 per cent population has been directly or indirectly rejected.

Referring to the lowest (58 per cent) literacy rate in Champaran in comparison to the national rate of 74.04 per cent and Bihar’s 63.82 per cent, an office-bearer of Mahatma Gandhi Kendriya Vishwavidyalaya Sangharsh Morcha, Sanjay Kaushik said by leaving a total population of about 90 lakh in Cham paran neglected, where else the HRD minister wants to take CUB?

General secretary of the district Freedom Fighters’ Association Kapildeo Narayan Singh (93) has also condemned Sibal’s statement on his refusal to setting up CUB at Motihari.

Expressing his strong resentment against Sibal, the freedom fighter told The Telegraph: “Had Sibal lived in slave India, especially during the Independence movement, he must have checked Bapu from visiting Champaran and launching the movement for Indian Independence from there.”