False allegations against Delhi's Education Dept: Sisodia tells L-G

New Delhi, Jan 21 (IANS) In a letter, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday lashed out at Lt. Governor (L-G) V.K. Saxena accusing him of making "false allegations" against the national capital's Education Department.

"A letter was written by you to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday. The figures given by you while criticising the functioning of the Education Department of Delhi are false. Delhi's 60,000 teachers, 18 lakh children and their 36 lakh parents, who have improved the education system with their hard work, are hurt and humiliated", Sisodia said in his letter to Saxena.

On Friday, Saxena wrote to Kejriwal in which he raised several issues related to the city's education sector.

In response, Sisodia said that "you should not defamed the entire education system of the national capital with your false statement".

"Like you have written a very wrong fact that the number of students in government schools of Delhi has decreased from 16 lakhs to 15 lakhs. While the reality is that in the year 2015-16 (the first year of the formation of the AAP government), the number of students in government schools of Delhi was 14,66,000, which has now increased to 18 lakhs.

"You might not even know that in 2015, there used to be only dilapidated rooms with water dripping from above in the name of government school. It was a distant thing to have drinking water and clean toilets in the schools. With dilapidated toilets in some corner of the building and bad smell, our teachers and students would have to stay in school for eight hours with closed noses. When I used to go to schools in 2015, I used to see the same scene almost everywhere and my heart cried. We are proud that the picture of government schools has changed during our tenure.

"Despite all this, when the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi writes in his letter with a political intention that no work has been done in the Education Department, then it is an insult to those lakhs of children, their parents and teachers," Sisodia added.

The Deputy Chief Minister also underlined the visit of former US First Lady Melania Trump to the happiness class in government schools of Delhi and has said that the reform in the schools have echoed in the White House.

"But to defame them, when the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi writes letters taking support of false facts, it does not suit the person sitting on the post of the Lieutenant Governor to do so," he said in the letter.