Criticising Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati for “ignoring the aspirations of the people,” Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Sunday said the Bahujan Samaj Party government would be ousted by the “janata” in the 2012 Assembly elections.
The 21-year-old banwaas (exile) of the Congress in the State from 1989 was about to end and the 23rd year (coinciding with the 2012 polls) would mark the return of the “Ram Rajya,” he said speaking at a seminar here on “Issues of governance in Uttar Pradesh.
The 21 years of non-Congress rule in the State had become synonymous with caste politics, he said.
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He regretted that the present-day administrators in U.P. were oblivious of the fact that knowledge and its dissemination were the actual wealth, and not moolah.
Referring to Ms. Mayawati's statement expressing her government's inability to implement the Right to Education Act for lack of funds, Mr. Sibal said a Chief Minister could not say there was no money for children's education. There was no harm if the Congress was attacked “but children should not be targeted”.
As empowerment of children was a key ingredient in good governance, the RTE budget was fixed at Rs.2,31,000 crore, he said.
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Reiterating his Ministry's move to bring democracy to classrooms, Mr. Sibal said children should be free to pursue education or course of their liking.
Vocational education
A National Vocational Education Framework would be constituted and 1,000- 1,500 vocations would be identified at the 10+2 level. Inaugurating the seminar, Congress general secretary in-charge of U.P. Digvijay Singh said corruption had become institutionalised under the BSP regime.
He demanded a judicial inquiry into the land deals that took place in Noida between 1990 and 2010.