Ahmedabad: Days after Gujarat Education Minister Jitubhai Vaghani asserted that those who had issues with the State’s education system could move base to any other State, the Aam Aadmi Party grabbed the opportunity with Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday visiting State-run schools in Vaghani’s constituency in Bhavnagar district and posting pictures of their pathetic conditions.
While AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal retweeted these pictures with a comment “sad state of affairs” in Hindi, the party’s Twitter handle invoked the visit of Melania Trump, wife of former US President Donald Trump, to a Delhi government school in 2020.
“Now we understand why Donald Trump's wife Melania Trump refused to visit Gujarat government schools, and instead chose to see Delhi's,” the AAP tweeted in Hindi.
Manish Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s Education Minister, visited two schools in Bhavnagar that fall in his Gujarat counterpart’s constituency. He shared several pictures of the schools and ridiculed the “Gujarat education model” and the BJP regime in the state. He asserted that, “These are instances of the type of government schools that the BJP's 27-year rule in Gujarat has given to its people.”
While the schools have “spider webs”, some rooms do not even have floors, forget desks for students. 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 asked in his Twitter post.
He said parents told him children and teachers went home to use toilets, and sometimes, they do not even return to the school. Kejriwal retweeted the pictures, saying it's “very sad” to see “this plight of government schools” in Gujarat.
The Delhi Chief Minister asserted in a Twitter post, “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?”
Sisodia's jibe at the BJP comes after his recent challenge to Vaghani for a debate on school education. During his address at a public function late last week, the Gujarat minister had said those who had problems with the State’s education could find better options in other states or even countries. 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 crumbling education system in the State, the Delhi CM promised his party will provide just as “good education” to the students as available in the capital.
