With controversy erupting in Kerala over the Center’s decision to name the second RGCB campus here after the late RSS ideologue MS Golwakar, Union Minister V Muraleedharan on Sunday backed the move, saying there was nothing wrong to name him a “patriot.”
“What’s wrong with naming an institute after a patriot?” Asked the minister when asked by reporters about the Center’s decision, which has sparked a dispute in the state.
Golwalkar was a professor of zoology at the University of Banaras, he said and asked how the famous Nehru trophy boat race was named after former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
“Has Nehru ever participated in any sporting activities?” Muraleedharan asked.
An impromptu boat race was held in 1952 in honor of Nehru during his visit to Alappuzha, and has grown into an annual event held on Punnamada Lake in August.
The minister said he did not understand why Golwalkar’s name had become unacceptable.
“The RGCB governing council made this decision and no one else has a role in it,” he told the media in Kasaragod.
CPI leader Panniyan Ravindran said the state would not accept this decision of the Center.
He claimed that a conscious effort was being made to impose wrong facts as history.
The Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan announced on Friday that the second campus of the Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology (RGCB), a major middle and high level knowledge center and innovation center, will be called the National Center Shri Guruji Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar. for complex diseases in cancer and viral infections.
The chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, had sent a letter to the union’s health minister on Saturday, urging him to reconsider the measure.
While left-wing parties have alleged that the BJP was trying to bring communal elements to the fore, Congress has questioned Golwalkar’s contribution to the field of science and technology in India.
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