Gaya, Nov. 27: Former Mithila University vice-chancellor and president of the Anjuman-Taraqqi-e-Urdu, Abdul Mughni, has accused Lalu Prasad and the governments run by his party of taking Bihar?s Urdu lovers ?for a ride?.

?Urdu lovers here have been cheated for 15 long years,? Mughni said this morning while inaugurating the district-level conference of the Anjuman at Makhdum Moiduddin Hall in Gaya.

The educationist also announced that from now on, Urdu Day will not be celebrated on June 11, which also happens to be the birthday of the Rashtriya Janata Dal president.

The demand to ?delink? Urdu Day from Lalu Prasad?s birthday had come from Syed Ahmed Qadri, general secretary of the district unit of the Anjuman.

Though a final decision on the new date for Urdu Day was yet to be taken, sources said it could probably be observed on the day (in December) the Bihar Official Language Amendment Act was passed, making Urdu the second official language of the country.

Mughni said the ?good work? done by the Jagannath Mishra government was undone during the Lalu-Rabri regime. ?It?s a good riddance,? he said, referring to the defeat of the RJD in the recent elections at the hands of the NDA.

Speaking on the current status of Urdu, Mughni rued that the three-language formula envisaged by the makers of the Indian Constitution has not been properly implemented.

The language, he added, was the ?victim? of ?dishonest interpretations? of the formula.

Addressing the audience, Mushtaq Ahmed Noori, deputy director in the government?s public relations department, said the language did not need official patronage to thrive. Urdu has survived against heavy odds, he added.

Noori exhorted Urdu lovers to adopt a more flexible and accommodative attitude vis-?-vis other languages.

The suggestion made by one of the speakers to adopt Roman as an additional script met with protests from a section of the audience, which felt that the language will lose its ?spirit and beauty? if written in any script other than Persian.

The other participants in the daylong conference included Urdu scholars Sartaj Ali Khan, Maulana Tayeb Usmani and activist Fazl-e-Waris.