Bengaluru: A faculty member of Mount Carmel English High School in Bengaluru was sacked after its question paper for class 8 students asked if a farmer’s friend was an earthworm or Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy or BJP leader B.S. Yeddyurappa, an official said on Thursday. The question, “Who is the friend of a farmer?”, carried three options – Earthworms, Kumaraswamy and Yeddyurappa.

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Speaking to reporters, school principal Raghavendra said that the administration did not have knowledge of the question posed in the exam and that they have dismissed the faculty member responsible for setting the question paper. The question soon went viral on social media platforms for its political tone.

Notably, Yeddyurappa calls himself a “raitha Bandhu” (farmers’ friend), while Kumaraswamy has often referred to himself as the farmers’ leader, as a means of wooing the state’s farming community. Kumaraswamy’s party, Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), also depicts a female farmer on its green flag (symbolic of fields and the farming community). The teachers who had prepared the question paper have been suspended. The question in the examination, however, did not intend to promote any political party or ideology, the school administration asserted.

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