Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia was on Tuesday allegedly prevented from visiting a government school in Lucknow by the Uttar Pradesh police.
Mr. Sisodia was on his way to check out a state-run school when police blocked his vehicle. The AAP leader said he had landed in Lucknow after accepting a challenge by Uttar Pradesh Education Minister Satish Dwivedi, who recently in a war of words between the two parties, had invited Mr. Sisodia to visit schools in his State to compare the models of education in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
As quoted by a news agency, Mr. Dwivedi had on December 15 invited Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Deputy Mr. Sisodia to visit schools in Uttar Pradesh, and said it would open their eyes.
On Tuesday, after attending a press conference, Mr. Sisodia’s car was not allowed to pass by the police following which he spoke to a senior police officer on phone, kept on speaker mode. “I can’t roam free in Lucknow? Am I a criminal?” Mr. Sisodia asked the police officer on the phone, before telling journalists that the police commissioner had told him he needed to seek permission if he wanted to roam freely in the Uttar Pradesh capital.
Mr. Sisodia alleged that the police were preventing him from visiting the school as the government wanted to hide the “Yogi Model.”
“They don’t want us to see the schools. It means BJP government, Yogi Model ... is admitting that even the schools in the capital [Lucknow] are bad,” Mr. Sisodia said from his car.
Mr. Sisodia said he had come to Lucknow, accepting Mr. Dwivedi’s challenge, to debate on “Kejriwal Model vs Yogi Model.”
