The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) led government has announced an end to holidays for Eid Milad-un-Nabi, Jummat-ul-Wida, and 15 other public holidays, BBC Urdu reported.
The announcement was made on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Twitter account on Tuesday.
Besides the aforementioned holidays, days off to celebrate the birth of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, Chandar Shekhar, and Chaudhry Charan Singh have also been ended.
“On the birthdays of great personalities, educational institutes should organize assemblies of at least an hour long informing students of their personality, achievements and motivational teachings,” the Chief Minister’s office declared in a series of tweets.
It is important to note that CM Yogi Adityanath had previously hinted at abolishing holidays for celebrating the birthdays of personalities.
“If the purpose of these holidays is to remember the great personalities and to motivate people, then why don’t we open schools for two hours on such occasions and inform the kids who these great people are?”, he questioned an audience while speaking at an event to celebrate the birthday of the Indian constitution’s architect.
A great majority of the holidays canceled by Yogi Adityanath’s government were implemented by the former Akhilesh Yadav government.
Currently, there are 42 public holidays in UP, out of which 17 celebrate the birthdays of notable personalities.