Gujarat Education Minister Jitubhai Vaghani on Wednesday sparked off a controversy by asserting that “those who have issues with the State’s education system may leave Gujarat”, inviting a strong rebuff from the opposition Congress that “Gujarat is nobody’s ancestral property.”
Simultaneously, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) demanded the minister’s “apology to the students and people”. AAP leader Isudan Gadhvi tweeted, “This is an insult to those who are dependent on the government’s education system.”
Stung by the Aam Aadmi Party’s insinuations at the state of Gujarat Government’s schools, Vaghani said in Rajkot earlier in the day, “If you have issues with Gujarat’s education system, you may leave the state or the country.”
Vaghani made this statement after inaugurating the new building of government school number 16, Sant Tulsidas School, in Rajkot.
The minister said, “You were born in Gujarat, studied and made careers here and educated your children here, now if you suddenly find problems with the education system here, you may please leave the State.”
“Move your family to another city or state or even country if you don’t like the system here,” Vaghani continued.
He said the Gujarat Government had welcomed everyone to come here and make valuable and constructive suggestions, but “these days people only wish to criticise and be happy with it.”
Reacting strongly to these statements by the Education Minister, former State Congress president Arjun Modhwadia asserted that, “Gujarat is nobody’s ancestral property.”
“The BJP should be ashamed to state this, after having pushed the state education system to the brink, after introducing privatisation,” he asserted.
“The BJP should quit the government if it is not able to give justice to the people of Gujarat,” Modhwadia said. He added, “Why should we leave Gujarat? We will live here and demand our rights.”
It may be recalled that AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and new Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had taunted the Gujarat Government and invited the State’s Education Minister to visit Delhi’s government schools, where bureaucrats also send their children and see the contrast.
Kejriwal had appealed to the people of the State to give his party an opportunity to create schools like Delhi or mohalla clinics like the ones his government had set up in the national capital.
