Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday hit out at the Opposition for criticizing the move to make Hindi a mandatory third language for students in classes 1 to 5 in Marathi and English-medium schools across the state.

He said those opposing the decision are raking up “unnecessary disputes for lack of real issues”.

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“Marathi is our mother tongue and will always have first preference in the state,” he said on the sidelines of the inauguration of a national memorial dedicated to Chapekar Brothers in Pimpri Chinchwad.

“Some people are creating disputes over the Hindi language only because they have nothing else to do. English is widely used across the country, and similarly, Hindi is spoken in many states. While there is a dispute over whether Hindi is the ‘Rashtra Bhasha’ (national language), I do not want to get into that,” Pawar said.

The Maharashtra government has decided that Hindi as a third language would be mandatory for students in classes 1 to 5 in Marathi and English-medium schools across the state, in a departure from the practice of studying two languages.

The three-language formula for classes 1 to 5 is a part of the new curriculum implementation under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The state school education department has declared a phase-wise implementation plan of the new curriculum framework designed as per the NEP 2020 recommendations for school education.

Pawar also asserted that all three languages — Marathi, Hindi and English — are important, but Marathi will always hold primacy in the state. “Marathi must remain intact and continue to grow,” he said.

Highlighting the Centre’s role in promoting the language, Pawar said, “It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who granted Marathi the status of a classical language, a decision that had been pending in Delhi for years. The NDA government showed the courage to make it happen.”

He added that plans are underway to set up a Marathi Bhasha Bhavan in Mumbai to further promote the language.

The opposition in Maharashtra, including the Congress and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), have strongly opposed the imposition. The Congress has said the decision amounts to the imposition of Hindi.

MNS leader Raj Thackeray said his party will not allow the Centre’s efforts to “Hindi-fy everything”. “We are Hindus, not Hindi,” he said, adding that his party will not tolerate this imposition and the trilingual formula should be restricted to government affairs.