Kejriwal leads march to LG office for go-ahead for teachers training programme

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal insisted on meeting Saxena with ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lawmakers and ministers

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday led a march from the assembly to the lieutenant governor (LG)’s office demanding schoolteachers be allowed to go for a training programme in Finland and against Vinai Kumar Saxena’s alleged interference in the government’s functioning.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia leading the protest march. (ANI)

The House was earlier adjourned amid ruckus over Saxena’s alleged remarks that the “administrator” could do all the work in Delhi irrespective of the Supreme Court’s judgments. Kejriwal on Friday claimed Saxena made the remarks as the two resumed their weekly meetings after months and escalated tensions between the two sides. Saxena’s office denied the claim as misleading and twisted.

In 2018, the top court said only subjects of land, services, and police rest with the lieutenant governor.

Kejriwal on Monday insisted on meeting Saxena with ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lawmakers and ministers. He refused Saxena’s offer to meet him and his deputy Manish Sisodia. “We have received a message [from Saxena’s office] that the chief minister and the deputy chief minister have been called for the meeting. We do not accept that. We all are responsible people and we want to talk. It is the responsibility of the LG to meet,” said Kejriwal.

The AAP on Thursday accused Saxena of stopping the government from sending teachers at state-run schools to Finland for training.

Saxena’s office denied the claim, saying no proposal on the programme has been rejected and that any statement on contrary is misleading. It said the government was “advised to evaluate the proposal in totality and record the cost-benefit analysis in tangible terms, so as to assess the effectiveness of various foreign training programs for teachers undertaken in the past.”

Kejriwal on Monday reiterated that Saxena has stopped the programme while questioning his authority to do so. “Who is LG to stop teachers’ training?”

He said Saxena does not have the power to stop the training. “...we have been told to do a cost-benefit analysis of teachers’ training in Finland... The salaries of doctors in Mohalla clinics have been stopped.”

Kejriwal asked whether Saxena was doing all this at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “We have been forced to take to the streets.”

He insisted the government will send the teachers for training abroad. Kejriwal said they staged a sit-in at the LG’s office when the approval for CCTV camera installation was denied in 2018. “After 10 days of sit-in, the LG had to sign the file,” Kejriwal said, urging Saxena to approve the training programme.

Kejriwal, Sisodia, and other AAP leaders carried banners and raised slogans against the LG.

The State Council of Educational Research and Training has proposed the five-day training programme at Finland’s Jyväskylä University. So far, the Delhi government has sent 1,079 teachers to Finland, the UK, and Singapore for training.