Jailed Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia on Friday wrote in an open letter that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “lack of educational qualification” was dangerous for India.
In the letter which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal posted on Twitter, his former deputy accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government of shutting down 60,000 government schools across the country.
“[Narendra] Modi does not understand science…” Sisodia alleged. “He does not understand the importance of education. It is necessary to have an educated prime minister for the progress of India.”
Sisodia, who also held the education ministry in the Delhi Cabinet, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on February 26 in a corruption case linked to Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor policy. He quit the Cabinet after his arrest and currently in judicial custody.
His letter comes a week after the Gujarat High Court quashed a 2016 order directing the Gujarat University to provide details about Modi’s educational qualifications to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Kejriwal.
The BJP claims that Modi was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Delhi University in 1978 and a Master of Arts degree from Gujarat University in 1983. However, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party has alleged that the degrees are fake.
In Friday’s letter, Sisodia criticised Modi saying that some of his remarks have been disheartening to listen to.
“The world is talking about artificial intelligence…Given this, when I hear the PM say that dirty gas funnelled from a drain can be used to make tea or food, my heart sinks,” Sisodia said. “He becomes the subject of jokes across the world and children in school and college make fun of him when he says that aircraft behind clouds cannot be detected by radar.”
Sisodia was referring to a Modi’s statement from 2018 where he claimed to have read about a tea seller who used gas emanating from a gutter as fuel to make the beverage. In an interview in 2019, Modi had said that he gave the Indian Air Force the green signal for its airstrike on a target in Pakistan’s Balakot despite bad weather because “the clouds could actually help our planes escape the radars”.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party said Sisodia’s letter question the prime minister’s educational qualifications was regrettable.
“I want to tell Sisodia, a person cannot be judged on the basis of their degrees, but their maturity, wisdom, their thinking and their understanding of issues — all of which, unfortunately, you do not possess yourself,” Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana said, according to The Indian Express.
Khurana also questioned Sisodia’s educational qualifications.
“You yourself are just a diploma-holder and you are questioning a qualified MA?” Khuran asked. “You neither have the wisdom nor the required understanding of issues and you are questioning a PM whom the country is proud of and the world salutes India for? This amazes me.”
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