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‘After 27 years of rule…’: Sisodia visits Gujarat govt schools, slams BJP
Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia shared a series of pictures of the two schools he visited in Gujarat's Bhavnagar, which is the home district of the state's education minister Jitu Vaghani.
In a fresh jibe against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that rules poll-bound western state of Gujarat, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday invoked the visit of Melania Trump, wife of former US President Donald Trump, to a Delhi government school in 2020.
Taking to Twitter, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party shared pictures of Melania meeting students of Delhi government schools on one side, and those they claim are Gujarat government schools on another.
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“Now we understood why Donald Trump's wife Melania Trump refused to visit Gujarat government schools, and instead chose to see Delhi's,” the tweet, roughly translated from Hindi, read.
AAP's tweet came after Delhi education minister and party leader Manish Sisodia visited two schools in Gujarat's Bhavnagar earlier in the day. He shared a series of pictures of the education institutions, and slammed the “Gujarat education model” and the BJP regime in the state.
Bhavnagar is the home district of Gujarat's education minister Jitu Vaghani.
Sharing the pictures, Sisodia said they are glimpses of the type of government schools that the BJP's 27-year rule in Gujarat has given to the people of the state.
He claimed the schools in Bhavnagar has “spider webs” and some of the rooms of the institutions do not even have floors, let alone desks for students.
“This is the education model of the BJP in Gujarat, which it has developed in [the state] in 27 years,” the Delhi education minister tweeted.
Sisodia also shared pictures of toilets of the schools in Bhavnagar, saying that their conditions are such that one cannot stand at the place for even a minute. “How can a teacher stay in the school for 7 hours and teach children?” he added in the post on the micro-blogging site.
He said that parents told him children and teachers go home to use toilets, and some times, they do not come back to the school.
Kejriwal retweeted the pictures shared by Sisodia, saying it's “very sad” to see “this plight of government schools” in Gujarat.
“It's been 75 years since we got independence. We could not afford a good education. Why? If each child doesn't get the best education, how will India progress?” the Delhi chief minister wrote in a post on Twitter.
Sisodia's jibe at the BJP comes after his recent challenge to Vaghani for a debate on school education. Furthermore, during his address at a public function a few days before, the Gujarat minister said people who do not like schools in the state should collect their children's school-leaving certificates and go to whichever state they find better. Sisodia had also invited his Gujarat counterpart to visit a school of his choice in the national capital, but the latter did not respond to it.
AAP, which will be contesting all the 182 seats in Gujarat assembly elections in December this year, is setting the stage to portray themselves as a viable alternative to the BJP. Education seems to be one of the key target areas for Kejriwal's unit as he too slammed the BJP in Gujarat over the same on Sunday. Alleging that the people of Gujarat have started to question the “crumbing education” system of the western state, the Delhi CM promised his party will provide just as “good education” to the students as available in the capital.
Furthermore, the AAP convener along with Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann took out a 2km ‘Tiranga Gaurav Yatra’ on Saturday. Addressing the crowd after an hour-long roadshow, Kejriwal appealed to the people of the state to “end corruption” by giving AAP a chance.
