Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 21: The Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) move to “inspect” the government schools in rural areas with a bid to improving their conditions, met with stiff resistance, reportedly from the local villagers, on Friday in Rampura-Kanwarpura village in Bagru town in Jaipur in Rajasthan after the CJP workers were stopped and prevented them from entering the school premises leading to clashes.
The villagers stopped the CJP and asked them to leave, but they decided to stage a protest outside the school. However, this only led to a clash, with CJP workers alleging that they were manhandled by the villagers. They claimed that the school was in poor condition and they only wanted to highlight that but they were denied an entry inside it. Several videos have also gone viral that showed the villages attacking the CJP workers.
Dramatic videos from the village showed a crowd confronting, abusing and attacking the CJP team as they made their way into the village. The crowd shouted slogans against the CJP, called them “urban naxals,” “anti-nationals” and “Pakistanis.” The volunteers were attacked and chased by the angry crowd. Some men were seen beating the CJP activists, who had to leave the village without visiting the school.
The CJP had even claimed that the attackers were from the ruling BJP
The CJP co-convenor and national spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka, who was leading the group, even claimed that the attackers belonged to the ruling BJP. In a series of posts on X, he alleged that stones were pelted at them and their members have suffered injuries.
He even claimed that a buffalo shed was built at the school. He said the CJP workers were assaulted at the behest of one, named Madan Dilawar. However, the CJP would not get “intimidated by such thuggery” and that he would ensure that the school gets fixed.
“All levels of disgust have been crossed today,” he said. “When we arrived there for inspection, we were openly assaulted, pelted with stones. Car windows were smashed, stones were rained down on the team. Clothes were torn. Stones were thrown into tubes to attack the team. My clothes were torn.”
“Requesting media to not blame the villagers for today’s incident. People were sent from outside to incite violence. It was the villagers who had requested us to come and inspect the school. I have been told that the local BJP counsellor was seen distributing money to some goons,” he said in another X post.
Ranka claimed that they were invited by the villagers to inspect the school that allegedly runs from a cowshed. For many years the school has been running from a cowshed. We visited the same school last year too. We had informed the police about today’s visit. But the BJP goons were already there.
The villagers, however, had a different story to tell. The villagers denied that they assaulted the CJP workers and said they did not want to politicise the matter. One of the villagers claimed that the CJP had brought around 200 to 250 people with them and they themselves broke their car. He said the villagers would not allow any other party, except the BJP and the Congress, to visit the village and get the school repaired. “They say that they had come to repair the school. But this will be done by our MLA, Rs 12 Lakhs has been earmarked for it,” he said.
Jaipur MLA Swami Balmukundacharya, who is from the BJP, said the locals don’t agree with the CJP’s views. “I have been informed that the villagers objected to the visit and did not allow the CJP to enter. This shows that the villagers do not want the kind of atmosphere that the Cockroach Party is trying to create, where they want to disrupt the children’s education.”
CJP’s Shivangi Sharma, who was part of the team, alleged that women were also beaten and abused by the crowd. “I am from this area, born and brought up here. I was called Pakistani, Naxal and outsider. How can they call us outsiders within our own country? I am very sad with what happened today,” Sharma said.
Some protesters who claimed to be villagers asked why the CJP did not go to Jharkhand if they are working for education. “They are anti-nationals. Why did they not go to Jharkhand? We don’t want them in our village,” they said. Another villager said, “This area has not seen any development. There are no roads, schools, nothing in our area. We want facilities.”
The attack on the CJP team also led to an uproar in the Rajasthan Assembly, with the BJP and Congress crossing swords. While Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasara blamed the BJP for the attack, Rajasthan Home Minister Jawahar Singh Bedam claimed it was the Congress that was creating trouble in the garb of the CJP.
Meanwhile, in Maharashtra, the CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke as part of his “School Theek Karo” (Fix The Schools) campaign, visited a government school in the Ausa area of Latur district and made some stunning claims. He alleged that students from other schools were brought in to sit in classrooms during his visit to a Zilla Parishad school. He also claimed that liquor bottles were found on the school premises. He further alleged that the students made to sit in the classroom were not even registered in the school records.
The school at Ausa, over 500 km from Mumbai, lacked drinking water and its toilets had been cleaned shortly before his arrival, he told reporters. In a video of the “inspection” shared on his X handle, Dipke claimed that the plates for the mid-day meal were also brought in fresh after news of his visit.
In the video, Dipke is seen interacting with students when he is told that they were not from the school. He is seen holding his head in surprise and arguing with a teacher. He also alleged a lack of drinking water and toilet facilities at the school. The premises had also been cleaned only a day earlier, he claimed, adding that photographs taken during the visit indicated that illegal activities were taking place within the school compound where liquor bottles were also found.
School authorities, however, rejected Dipke’s claims. School principal Balaji Gawali clarified that two separate schools – one Marathi-medium and one Urdu-medium – operate from the same building and refuted the claim that students from outside were brought in. Gawali asserted that the children present were indeed students of the school.
He also denied the allegation that new plates had been procured merely for show, stating that the children were eating from older plates provided to the school. The principal maintained that Dipke was under the mistaken impression that these arrangements and the display were staged specifically for his visit, which was not the case.
Dipke remarked that the students in these schools lived in conditions “worse than animals” stating, “Even a minister’s dog gets better facilities than the students! If the government hasn’t been able to fix leaking roofs or address the shortage of benches in ten years, what exactly have they achieved?” Dipke has demanded the resignation of the state’s School Education Minister, Dada Bhuse. The block education officers responsible for the poor condition of schools in the area, who remain unavailable citing official tours, should be suspended within eight days, he demanded.
The CJP has launched the “School Theek Karo” campaign under which it will conduct a social audit of government-run and municipal schools in Latur district of Maharashtra. The CJP has prepared a 10-point audit format covering basic facilities, school administration, government schemes, safety and security, transportation, mid-day meals, accessibility, cleanliness and overall functioning of schools.