Manish Sisodia offers to show ‘Delhi model’ to Gujarat MLAs, wants them to return favour

NEW DELHI: A day after BJP’s Delhi state vice-president Virender Sachdeva said a 17-member delegation of party leaders from Gujarat will assess the “ground reality” of government schools, hospitals and mohalla clinics in the capital, deputy CM Manish Sisodia on Tuesday formed a team of five AAP MLAs to accompany them.
Sisodia, who also holds the education and health portfolios, said AAP MLAs Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Sanjeev Jha, Kuldeep Kumar and Gulab Singh will take the Gujarat BJP leaders to any school, hospital and mohalla clinic of their choice.
“The same MLAs will visit Gujarat next week to see the schools and hospitals there. I am sure the Gujarat government will also welcome them and show the schools and hospitals they want to see,” Sisodia said in a series of tweets.
Assembly elections in Gujarat are scheduled to take place later this year. On Tuesday, the BJP delegation, including BJP MLAs and Speaker of the Gujarat legislative assembly, arrived in the capital.
Addressing a press conference, Atishi said she and other MLAs were present at the party headquarters near ITO and were “eager” to welcome the Gujarat BJP delegation. “They can come here and tell us whichever school, mohalla clinic or hospital they want to visit, we’ll happily take them there,” she added.
She said considering the “dilapidated” condition of schools and hospitals in Gujarat, it was “pertinent” for the delegation to “learn from Delhi”.
“About 6,000 schools in Gujarat have shut down in the past two years while Delhi’s education revolution is being discussed and lauded throughout the world. This seems to have compelled BJP leaders to come and learn from here,” she said.
Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta, however, said whenever a foreign delegation comes to see the city’s education system, the Kejriwal government shows it three-four buildings whose walls have just been painted. “To say there has been a revolution in the education sector is an exaggeration. The AAP leaders are nervous because on earlier occasions they have patted their own back about the so-called model by showing it to pre-arranged people,” Gupta said and also challenged Sisodia to an “open debate” on Delhi’s education system.