The BJP on Thursday hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claiming that the culture of 'revdis' being promoted by the outfit was more focussed on advertising but weak on governance.
"I am here to expose the free education model of Arvind Kejriwal. Kejriwal's mantra is Vigyapan par zor, Vyavastha me kamjor (Focus on advertisements, weak on governance). Kejriwal's revdi model means that of the 500 schools and 20 colleges promised, none have been delivered. This is the revdi culture we caution against," said BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla addressing a press conference.
He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken about the perils of populism and its pitfalls. "As we can observe the trend in various countries, those who practised the policy of providing freebies were embroiled in several corrupt practices. Kejriwal chose to take this comment personally. Is this the case of Chor ki darhi me tinka?" he asked.
Poonawalla said there is a between welfare policy and revdi politics. Welfare policies empower a targeted section who have been deprived of necessities. These add to the productivity of the population. "Whereas, revdi culture is a lollipop dished out for political gains and makes no transformation to people's lives. They misuse the taxpayer's money," he added.
The BJP leader spoke of how Kejriwal instead of providing free education, free water, free electricity, free health had opted for "free corruption, free pollution, free advertisements, free appeasements, free drugs and liquor".
Poonawalla then gave an example of, what he termed as, a "complete failure" of the Kejriwal government in the education sector. He claimed that Kejriwal promised 500 new schools and 20 new colleges but instead licensed upto 850 liquor vends.
He said that of the 1027 Delhi government schools, many did not have the science stream in 11th and 12th while over 745 were functioning without a principal. As many as 418 schools have no vice principal and 40,000 seats meant for EWS had not been filled as per the RTE act, he claimed.
Poonawalla further said that Kejriwal had planned to increase the fees of private institutions and diploma level institutions by almost 7 percent and caused hardship to poor students but the Delhi Lieutenant Governor stopped this proposal. He further claimed that 22,000 guest teachers lost jobs and were not made permanent teachers.
"Almost 45,000 teacher positions were lying vacant in schools," he added.
Poonawalla slammed the Kejriwal government for indulging in "corruption even in the education sector" and referred to a letter written by the education ministry to the PWD about various "shortcomings and illegalities in the construction of classrooms".
In a reference to arrested TMC minister Partha Chatterjee, the BJP leader said "Kejriwal was only protecting his 'Parthas' and said AAP ministers like Satyendra Jain and Manish Sisodia faced serious allegations. The AAP has refuted charges against its leaders.
The BJP and AAP had engaged in a war of words on the freebie culture. While the BJP has emphasised that such politics is not in the people's interest, AAP has claimed that it politics was in favour of the poor.
( With inputs from ANI )
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