Author: Coomi Kapoor
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: March 16, 2008
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/284881.html
BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who was recently
in Kolkata was invited by the local Press Club to attend a Saraswati puja.
Joshi was delighted to participate, but he could not resist pointing out the
irony that, when as HRD minister in the Vajpayee government he had presided
over a programme at Vigyan Bhavan where there was a short invocation to the
goddess Saraswati, there was an uproar in Bengal. The Left Front had protested,
claiming it was against our secular tradition. A Bengali scribe was at pains
to make it clear that it was not the people of Bengal who had objected, but
only the state education minister.
