For one, girls education has been free in Gujarat since 1984. For another, the BJP's election manifesto had promised ``free education upto degree level in any faculty'' for girls.

Congress spokesman and former education minister Hasmukh Patel said the BJP was upturning the ``basic structure'' of education in the state, as the government resolution relaxes all government control over school management. ``Both students and teachers will suffer,'' he said.

More and more schools would opt to do without grants, and without government control, education would suffer, Patel said.

Ahmedabad Women's Action Group (AWAG) president Ila Pathak said this was an unusual situation in which girl students needn't pay fees in college, but have to do so in schools.

Pathak said the resolution allows school managements so much freedom that it was bound to lead to exploitation of teachers. ``Without government control over salaries paid by managements, as is the case for primary schools, women teaching in such schools will be paid less than male teachers,'' she said.

Pathak called the resolution a sly step to nullify whatever good was being done for Dalits and women -- and this was being done in the name of trying to have more schools by privatising education.

The Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP) has a complaint of a different kind. Its president Madhusudan Mistry said, ``The BJP opposed this resolution when we tried to implement it, but now they have added another clause -- scrapping, more or less, free education for girls''.

Teachers organisations speak less of the end of free education for girls (in non-grant schools). Gujarat State Higher Secondary Teachers Association president Jayantibhai Patel said it wasn't as if it would leave schools taking grants unaffected. ``But we will not oppose the resolution until teachers protected by us are affected,'' he said.

But school trusts see things differently.

Raja Pathak, principal and trustee of Swastik Shishuvihar School, said this would lead to education of much better quality. ``The grant money thus saved can be used for setting up schools for backward classes. After all, the law shouldn't tell private schools to implement government policy,'' he said.

BJP MP Bhavana Dave, who is a principal, defended the resolution saying free education for girls was necessary only in rural areas. This would be taken care of with the money saved as more schools went without grants, she said.

Dave refused comment on her party's agitation last year when a similar resolution had been adopted by the RJP government.