'North MCD trying to sell 40 schools at throwaway prices'

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday alleged that the MCD is trying to sell 40 schools at throwaway prices. The Party's MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said the BJP-headed corporation has shut down 34 North MCD schools last year and is now going to shut 40 more schools this year.

The party in a statement added that its school admissions have gone up from 2.9 lakhs to 3.03 lakhs and yet the MCD is shutting down schools citing lack of students.

"BJP is conspiring to give away all these schools to its own people by registering bogus NGOs in their names," Pathak alleged.

"Imagine the amount of shame that the people of Delhi would have to bear with when they get to know that on one side the Kejriwal Government is taking education to new heights and on the other, the BJP is hellbent on destroying it," he said.

Pathak said that in these schools children of the poorest of the poor go to study with the hope of getting freedom from poverty. "The BJP-ruled MCD is closing one school after the other at present. Recently, the BJP pulled the plug on South MCD schools and now they are after North MCD schools," he said. He also alleged that the BJP is conspiring to give away all the schools to its own people by registering it under NGOs owned by its own leaders.

"The sale is supposed to follow the same order of events like the case of BJP Councillor Manju Khandelwal handing over land to her husband. The BJP leaders will register bogus NGOs and then get their own people to give them

these schools so they can exploit them for commercial gain," he said.

He also said that the BJP leaders started by encroaching land, followed by occupying markets, old-age homes, and garbage collection points. "Everyone is aware about the shortage of land in Delhi. Yet the BJP has conspired to find this way out to take over public lands. The BJP only wants to pocket money by selling 40 schools meant for the poor," he added.