AAP govt campaign sets tone for 2027 Assembly elections
AAP Punjab incharge Manish Sisodia on Monday used the occasion for the launch of the “Punjab Sikhya Kranti” campaign to send out a clear political message to Punjabis ahead of the 2027 Assembly polls.
At the inauguration of a new block in the School of Eminence at Nawanshahr Sisodia, who accompanied CM Bhagwant Mann, while hitting out at the Opposition parties for “ignoring” government schools during their successive tenures patted his government for “transforming” education in the past three years.
On the other hand, the Opposition targeted the ruling party for running the “plaque scam” under the garb of “Sikhya Kranti”.
About Sikhya Kranti
Under the “Punjab Sikhya Kranti’, the Punjab Government, in a never-heard-before mass-scale 54-day-long exercise, has plans to inaugurate upgraded school infrastructure in over 10,000 schools at a cost of nearly Rs 20 crore that also includes putting up near 25,000 inaugural plaques having names of the Chief Minister, Education Minister, MPs, MLAs and other elected representatives.
Not just the new works, the inauguration plaques have to be installed even for repaired/renovated works such as boundary walls, classrooms, washrooms etc. Each work will have a separate plaque, as per the written order to the teachers.
The drive that began on April 7 will continue till May 31 during which over 25,000 big/small works in at least 10,877 schools will be inaugurated by the Chief Minister, Education Minister, local MLAs, MPs and others.
The works are being inaugurated in at least 6,810 primary schools, 1,213 middle schools, 1,273 high schools and 1,581 senior secondary schools- totaling 10,887 schools. However, the number is expected to increase as works are still ongoing in some schools.
The ground position
As reports trickled in on Monday, the event took place in nearly 350 schools that witnessed multiple inaugural plaques being inaugurated for different works in most of the schools. To showcase the upgradation, the entire government machinery and party volunteers ensured the message of “transforming schools” spread out loud and clear to the intended audience. Banners and billboards, eulogising the role of the AAP leadership through mass media platforms, had been erected at the schools.
In contrary to what had been promised in official communication, teachers did not get the funds to make the arrangements and instead had to spend from their pockets to get plaques made, arrange tents, snacks for VIPs and other arrangements for the inauguration ceremonies.
Opposition’s take
Terming the upgrade of school infrastructure as a continuous process, the Opposition questioned the motive behind the AAPs’ grand-scale inaugural spree for the upgradation works. With AAP losing in Delhi elections, the total focus of the party is on Punjab for the 2027 elections with focus on eulogising the party for transforming education and health in the state. The Congress, SAD and BJP termed the “Sikhya Kranti” as plaque scam. They said the political photo-ops are brighter than classroom lights, nameplates outnumber notebooks and inaugural plaques outshine infrastructure.
Punjab