Gujarat ministers attack Akhilesh, Kejriwal over social media posts with old Class X exam results

Ahmedabad: Gujarat minister Harsh Sanghavi on Sunday slammed Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal over X posts centred around media reports about abysmal results in the state's Class X exams though these are yet to be declared.

Sanghavi, the minister of state for home in the Bhupendra Patel government, said this was a "clear attempt to spread misinformation", while his colleague and minister of state for education Praful Pansheriya dubbed it "despicable attempts by failed leaders".

Attaching what appeared to be a 2023 news report with the headline 'Gujarat board results: Zero student passed Class 10 in 157 schools', Yadav in a post on X said, "The Gujarat model has failed...Not a single student passed the 10th board exam in 157 schools in Gujarat. We will remove BJP and save the future."

Kejriwal doubled down on the post and said, "This is Gujarat model. This is the BJP model which they want to implement in the entire country. This is the double engine model. They want to keep the whole country illiterate. You tell me one state where they have a government and they have not ruined the education there. Under this model, they are now trying to destroy the education system in Delhi."

The posts were flagged by netizens who said the Class X board exams in Gujarat are due in May.

In a scathing attack on the two opposition leaders, Sangahvi, in his message on X, said, "I have never seen such fake and fraudulent leaders. The Gujarat Board results haven't been released yet, but Mr. Akhilesh Yadav and his associate, Arvind Kejriwal, have shared fake results on social media. This is a clear attempt to spread misinformation and manipulate public opinion. These leaders have no right to drag children into their dirty politics."

Pansheriya said students, parents and teachers must be alert "against fake news and trust only official sources".

"The people of Gujarat and the country are aware and do not accept such falsehoods, which is why such fake leaders have been voted out by the aware voters across the country," Pansheriya said.

"There is a despicable attempt by anti-social and failed leaders to cheat students by posting fake board results on social media. Don't drag children into your dirty politics. Don't play wrong political stunts on the future of students," he said in another tweet.

Defending Yadav and Kejriwal, Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said the state's education sector has indeed weakened under BJP rule and claimed these could be proved by several yardsticks.

"In the 30-year rule of BJP, the education sector has weakened. There is a shocking report regarding student-teacher ratio, with the government schools having witnessed a sharp reduction in the number of teachers and classrooms. The department is the epicentre of corruption," he alleged.

A school without a teacher and a village without a school is the model of Gujarat BJP, Doshi further claimed.