Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday used a “mega parent-teacher meeting” of all Delhi government schools to make a political pitch by asking parents to vote for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and ensure their victory in all seven Lok Sabha seats.
“If you love your children, vote for those who are working for them and if you do not love your children then go and vote for PM Modi. Modi has not built even a single classroom or a school. You have to choose between love for nation or love for Modi,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
Streamed live
Mr. Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were inaugurating the start of the construction work for 11,000 classrooms to be built across 200 Delhi government schools at a function in Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in New Friends Colony. It was streamed live to all 731 DoE school buildings.
Mr. Kejriwal asked the students present to thank their parents for voting the AAP to power in the Delhi Assembly elections and said they were working to provide a situation where no educated person would be left unemployed. Addressing the parents, he said that in the Lok Sabha elections, Delhi gave all seven seats to the BJP and therefore much of the works the AAP wanted to do was being stalled. Hence, he requested them to vote the AAP to power in all seven seats so that they could work with greater efficiency.
This is the second phase of infrastructure expansion by the Delhi government. In the first phase, 8,000 new classrooms were built between 2015 and 2018.
Mr. Kejriwal said the number of classrooms the government has added in the past four years was equivalent to building 1,000 new schools.
He added that his government was not only building infrastructure but has also invested money into training teachers in the best institutes across the country and heads of school have been sent to the best foreign institutes for the same.
“Students are being taught how to be better citizens via the Happiness Curriculum and become job providers via the Entrepreneurship Curriculum to deal with the problem of growing unemployment,” he said.
Mr. Sisodia said 25 new schools have been built, 31 are under construction and the blueprints for 78 more have been finalised as the government has been working with honesty and education has been given prime importance.
Leader of the Opposition Vijender Gupta hit out at the Chief Minister, asking him where are the 500 schools that were promised in AAP manifesto. “New classrooms are no substitute for new schools. It is highly misleading on the part of Mr. Kejriwal to say today that he has opened 1,000 new schools by opening new classrooms. He should not fool the public with his fallacious arguments,” Mr. Gupta said.
The LoP criticised Mr. Kejriwal for politicising the occasion, which was a parent-teacher meeting.
