AAP's Manish Sisodia Jibes At PM Modi On His Visit To Gujarat School

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited a school in Gujarat and interacted with students by sitting on a bench with them when the people of the state have the option of bringing the AAP to power in the state as it is known for building schools.

PM Modi, who began his two-day visit to Gujarat on Wednesday, launched 'Mission Schools of Excellence' at Adalaj in Gandhinagar, where he visited a school, sat on a bench in a classroom there and interacted with students.

"When people of Gujarat have the option of choosing a leader like Arvind Kejriwal, who builds schools, PM Modi is saying - 'Look, I have also built a school'. It would have been better had it (schools) been built in the last 27 years of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) rule in Gujarat," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said.

According to the Gujarat government, the project with a total outlay of Rs 10,000 crore will help strengthen education infrastructure in the state by setting up new classrooms, smart classrooms, computer labs and overall upgradation of infrastructure of schools in the state.

Addressing a press conference, Mr Sisodia said he was happy to see the prime minister sitting in a government-run school and posing for photographs with the children.

"But the sad thing is that had this work been done 27 years ago, every child in every city would have got excellent school. Today, when the people of Gujarat are determined to change the government, you are going and sitting with children. If we can do all this work in seven years (in Delhi), then a lot more could have happened in 27 years of the BJP rule in Gujarat," he said.

The AAP leader is in Gujarat to campaign for his party ahead of the Assembly elections, due by the year-end.

Mr Sisodia said that Union minister Amit Shah had also similarly visited a school and inaugurated it in Ahmedabad a few months ago, and attributed this change in the BJP leaders to the change in the thinking of the voters of Gujarat, who are looking forward to providing free and quality education to their children.

He accused the BJP of putting the future of one crore children in the state at stake by ignoring the infrastructure in schools.

"Children's future is spoilt. If they get poor education, can they have a bright future?" he asked.

Mr Sisodia alleged that while PM Modi inaugurated the school, the BJP government has created a system where a teacher was forced to act as the conductor of a bus to ferry public for the latter's rally in Junagadh.

"A teacher from a government school showed me a letter issued by the government to work as a conductor in the buses meant to carry the people coming to attend the PM's programme. If BJP is taking buses full of people, then government school teachers will work as conductors in it. They have created such a condition for school teachers and are inaugurating a school despite being in power since the last 27 years," the AAP leader claimed.

With 50 more days are due for the election, the BJP will play many new tricks and mislead the public, he alleged.

"The Delhi government is the only government in the history of the country that spends 25 per cent of its budget on schools. Everywhere else, 10 per cent to 12 per cent of the budget is spent on education. Centre, on the other hand, spends only 3 per cent on education," Mr Sisodia said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)