However, opposition parties, including the Congress, have supported the university decision to give priority to English as a medium.

'Either the Left parties do not want to make our future generations competent for national level competitions or they are unnecessarily indulging in politics when the entire world is taking initiatives to impart sound knowledge to the new generation,' Congress leader Ratan Lal Nath told journalists.

'Tripura is blindly following the Left Front government in West Bengal which is taking an about-turn in every sector, as it tries desperately to regain ground lost over two decades.'

A senior professor of the Tripura Central University said the union human resource development ministry had directed that the medium of learning must be either English or Hindi.

'If the college and university students do not learn English, they would be unable to appear in the all India National Eligibility Test (NET) examinations to get jobs in higher education,' the professor said on condition of anonymity.

The university was under the Tripura government until 2007 when it became a central varsity.