MP higher education minister Jaibhan Pawaiya calls for shunning January 1 bash

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh higher education minister Jaibhan Pawaiya on Wednesday called for shunning New Year’s Day celebration by Hindus inviting criticism from several quarters.

“The New Year’s celebration is a western concept. We do not follow English calendar to observe our festivals. Hindus have their own calendar and we should observe festivals as suggested in Hindu calendars,” the saffron leader declared while addressing a gathering here.

Mr Pawaiya said Hindus should strictly follow the Hindu calendar to preserve the rich heritage and culture of India and exhorted the Hindus not to celebrate the English New Year’s Day.

Ruling BJP legislator Mohan Yadav backed Mr Pawaiya, saying the practice of celebrating New Year’s must be done away with.

He went to the extent of dubbing the New Year’s celebration as “dirty act”.
Opposition Congress slammed the minister and his party’s MLA for giving a call to people to refrain from celebrating New Year’s terming it a “narrow mindset”.

“No one, politician or civilian, can dictate others what occasions to celebrate. On one hand, BJP is calling for shunning the New Year’s celebration, on the other the party is observing birth anniversaries of many of its prominent leaders like former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and others as per the same calendar. It is nothing but hypocrisy on the part of the BJP to shun New Year celebrations,” Congress spokesman here Pankaj Chaturvedy said.