Schools across the Shiromani Akali Dal’s home turf in south-western Punjab are getting a makeover that students could have only dreamt of — a fully air conditioned room and a luxurious bathroom fit for a chief minister!
But then that’s exactly who the spanking new facilities are being installed for. Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal — evidently inspired by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s success in connecting with common people in Uttar Pradesh — has decided to spend nights in villages where he holds his sangat dharshans or public durbars.
“I will spend nights in different parts of Punjab during my sangat darshan programmes,” Mr Badal told reporters. But the “reconnect” bears considerable costs for the state exchequer. Lakhs are being spent on ensuring befitting transit quarters for the CM and schoolrooms are the preferred location since their usual occupants are the least likely to protest and only too happy for a free holiday.
So the computer lab in Adarsh School Kot Bhai (Muktsar), where Mr Badal spent Saturday night, was redone into part air-conditioned bedroom and part washroom. Similar alterations were made to students’ classrooms in government schools at Chappianwali and Alamwala. Officials who are understandably nervous about being identified, quietly confirmed many more chief ministerial stopovers are on the anvil.
The schoolroom makeovers have drawn considerable criticism in local newspapers but Mr Badal remains unshakable from his resolve to at least “live among the masses” if not to ‘live like the masses’ he rules over.
And his loyalists think it is a “good idea” notwithstanding the cost or the curricular disruptions.