Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Thursday jointly inaugurated the east Delhi campus of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) even as AAP and BJP supporters exchanged heated arguments during the inauguration.
The supporters of both the parties exchanged heated arguments as the row over the inauguration of the new campus of the GGSIPU in the National Capital intensified even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed for peace.
Appealing for calm, Kejriwal said, “With folded hands, I request you to please listen to me for five minutes”.
After the LG secretariat objected to the announcement that Kejriwal would inaugurate a new campus of GGSIPU, the power struggle between the AAP-led Delhi Government and Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena reached a new boiling point.
The Lieutenant Governor also arrived at the new campus for its inauguration ceremony on Thursday. BJP supporters raised slogans against Kejriwal outside the new campus.
Earlier, a Rapid Action Force was deployed inside the campus to prevent any untoward incident.
The inauguration of the university campus became a contentious issue between Lieutenant Governor and the AAP-led Delhi government, as both sides asserted their claim to inaugurate the facility.
The AAP on Wednesday had announced that the east Delhi campus of GGSIPU will be inaugurated by Kejriwal on June 8. Meanwhile, the office of L-G said it had already been decided that the inauguration would be done by L-G Saxena.
On L-G’s claims regarding the inauguration, Delhi Education Minister Atishi said: “In his hunger to grab credit for the elected government’s work, the LG should not forget that education, higher education and technical education are all transferred subjects.”
Atishi said: “The Kejriwal government has been working on all these three sectors diligently over the last eight years. Today if you go on the streets of Delhi and ask any citizen about who brought the education revolution of Delhi, they will say Arvind Kejriwal, they will not say the BJP-appointed LG worked on education. It is highly unbecoming of an L-G to try to steal credit for the elected government’s work, he should not indulge in such petty politics.”
“The IPU campus is part of the three state university campuses the Kejriwal government is developing in the Jamnapaar/Trans Yamuna region, along with the NSUT East Campus and DTU East Campus. It is public knowledge that this campus was the brainchild and dream project of Manish Sisodia. Right from its planning, supervising its construction and curriculum, Manish Sisodia has been involved in every aspect of the project, well before the present L-G was sent to Delhi,” she said.
The east campus of GGSIPU has been constructed in an area of 18.75 acres to provide world-class higher education to the students in Delhi.