Bengaluru: In a fulfilment of one of its poll promises, the State Congress Government has announced repeal of the State’s Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, 2022 — known as the Anti-Conversion Law — passed by the previous BJP Government.

The State Cabinet, during the Cabinet meeting held here on Thursday, the second full-fledged one after the Congress came back to power last month, decided to repeal the controversial Act, whose validity has been questioned in a Court.

Speaking to presspersons after the Cabinet meeting, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.K. Patil said that the State Government will restore the freedom given to the people by the Constitution to profess the religion they wish to, which was taken away by the BJP Government under the guise of stopping forceful conversions.

APMC Act: The Cabinet also decided to repeal the BJP Government’s amendments to the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Act (APMC Act) made in 2020, which were opposed by a number of farmer groups. Both the repeal Bills will be piloted in the Budget session of the Assembly starting on July 3, he noted.

Pointing out that the APMC Act will be restored in its originality with certain modifications, Patil said the new Act will bring some changes in the issuance of Licenses for traders and demarcate the area for each APMC so that whatever rules apply within the APMC premises will also apply across the demarcated area. This means, even though traders purchase the agricultural products outside APMCs, they will have to pay the required charges to the APMCs concerned, he added.

KPSC vacancies: Patil further said the Cabinet authorised CM Siddharamaiah to appoint three members to the KPSC to fill vacancies. Also, the BMTC has been allowed to purchase 10 double-decker electric buses at a cost of Rs. 28 crore and the Government has given post facto approval for hiking salaries of KSRTC, BMTC, NWKRTC and KKRTC employees by 15 percent, he added.

Revision of textbooks

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Madhu Bangarappa said the Cabinet approved revision of school textbooks by dropping changes that were made when the BJP was in power last year. Changes that were made to Kannada and Social Studies textbooks for classes 6-10 will be undone, he added. With this, lessons on RSS Founder K.B. Hedgewar, Hindu Nationalist Veer Savarkar and one penned by Hindutva ideologue Chakravarthy Sulibele are out. Lessons on woman social reformer Savithribai Phule, Architect of the Constitution Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru are back. Last year, the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP Government had appointed a Committee under writer Rohit Chakrathirtha to revise school textbooks, which received backlash from a section of Kannada authors and intellectuals, who accused the BJP Government of  ‘saffronising’ education.

Madhu Bangarappa said “Since the academic year has already begun and textbooks have been issued to students, the Government will print supplementary text books comprising the changes. The booklets will be distributed to all schools as soon as possible,” he said adding that the printing of supplementary booklets would cost the Government about Rs.12 lakh.

The supplementary booklets is based on the changes recommended by a five-member expert committee that had Rajappa Dalvai, Ravish Kumar, Prof. T.R. Chandrashekar, Dr. Ashwathnarayan and Rajesh.

Reading preamble of Constitution mandatory in Schools

Social Welfare Minister Dr. H.C. Mahadevappa said the Cabinet also decided to make it mandatory for students in all Government, aided and unaided schools and colleges, to read the preamble of the Constitution everyday prior to the classes.

Maintaining that this decision has been taken to emphasise the spirit of harmony, religious tolerance and inclusiveness reflected in the preamble, the Minister said that displaying the preamble is a must in all public offices.