A controversy erupted in Rajasthan on Monday after state minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jawahar Singh Bedam alleged that several Urdu school teachers in the state secured their jobs using fake degrees, reported PTI.

His comments came amid growing tensions after the state education department directed Mahatma Gandhi Government School (RAC Battalion) in Jaipur to offer Urdu as an optional language instead of as a third language.

The order was issued by the district education officer at the direction of the office of Madan Dilawar, the state School Education Minister.

“The minister has ordered the creation of Sanskrit teachers’ posts and close down Urdu [classes],” PTI quoted the order as stating. “Therefore, make sure to send the complete proposal for opening Sanskrit as a third language in your school to this office.”

Days later, the state education department issued a similar notification to a government senior secondary school in Bikaner district’s Napasar about replacing the language, PTI reported

However, Ashish Modi, director of the state’s Board of Secondary Education, said that the order did not apply to all schools.

“It is not a blanket order,” he said. “Except one student, there is nobody who studies Urdu as the third language in a government school in Napasar, Bikaner. This is the reason why it was discontinued.”

On Monday, Bedam, the minister of state for home and animal husbandry in Rajasthan, alleged that the preceding Congress government had removed Sanskrit teachers and replaced them with those teaching Urdu.

“Now, we do not know Urdu and no one even studies that subject, which is why we will discontinue the posts of Urdu teachers and provide the kind of education that people want here,” the news agency quoted him as saying at an event in Bharatpur.

The Urdu Teachers’ Association called the minister’s statements baseless and irresponsible.

“It is not correct to call Urdu teachers fake without any investigation,” PTI quoted Urdu Teachers’ Association chief Amin Kayamkhani as saying. “It is also untrue that previous Congress government appointed Urdu teachers replacing Sanskrit teachers.”

Meanwhile, Congress MLA Rafeek Khan, in a letter to Dilawar, said: “Presently, 127 students studying Urdu as third language in the school. Closing Urdu classes would adversely affect the students.”