Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), on Saturday launched the party’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign, as he conducted an audit of a government school in his native village, Santuk Pimpri in Maharashtra’s Hingoli district.
The party’s founder shared a video of the first inspection on Independence Day, showing his team assessing the facilities available to students and interacting with them about the problems they face on a daily basis. The campaign is aimed at identifying the shortcomings in government schools and encouraging local communities, as well as authorities to address them.
CJP Founder Dipke
Students flag basic problems
Dipke posted the video on CJP’s ‘X’ handle, in which he was seen interacting with young girls to gather their feedback about the school’s facilities. On the basis of the responses provided by the students, CJP shed light on several problems, such as inadequate water supply, lack of drinking water, shortage of benches, dirty washrooms and broken windows.
Dipke added, “Even after 80 years of Independence, our government schools still lack basic amenities.” Subsequently, the CJP founder called on the village sarpanch, who assured him that the Panchayat would address the problems within seven days.
Dipke said, “ Change is possible when we come together and act.”
Teams to visit villages
In an interaction with news agency PTI ahead of the campaign, Dipke said he would set the initiative in motion from his village and would request the sarpanch to ensure that the local government school had basic facilities such as benches and drinking water.
He went on to say that the CJP had constituted teams, which would visit villages, interact with residents and approach Sarpanchs to seek corrective action.
Besides this, the campaign also calls upon villagers to visit their children’s schools, identify deficiencies and report them to CJP members.
Education deserves attention: Dipke
Commenting on a Tiranga Yatra organised in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister (CM) Devendra Fadnavis, Dipke said such events were appropriate for Independence Day, but argued that greater attention should also be given to education.
He reflected on videos purportedly showing girls complaining that they had to walk seven kilometres to reach their schools owing to the absence of a proper road. Earlier, Dipke had urged Sarpanchs to spearhead efforts to ramp up facilities in government schools in their respective villages and ensure that students are able to access basic amenities.
Posting on social media, he said children in rural areas should not have to plead for basic facilities at schools even after 70 years of Independence. He said the CJP would launch the ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign to improve government schools in villages.
Dipke said in another post, “We want an India where children carry the tricolour to school, not sell it at traffic signals out of poverty.”