Dead rat in midday meal not one-off incident in Delhi: BJP

The BJP on Friday staged a protest against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the aftermath of nine students of a government school being taken ill after a dead rat was found in their midday meal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that the case is not an "isolated" incident of "mismanagement" in schools.

Hundreds of BJP workers led by south Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri staged a protest outside the Chief Minister's residence and raised slogans against him.

Police had to use mild force as the BJP workers tried to jump the barricade.

Addressing the demonstrators, Bidhuri said: "The midday meal food poisoning incident at Deoli Bandh is not an isolated incident of mismanagement in schools... The condition of most government schools in south Delhi's rural areas is very poor."

"Up to 80-90 students are made to sit in one classroom and many schools are in dilapidated condition," the BJP MP said.

He also said that there was a massive shortage of teachers in schools. "Even basic facilities of commerce and science courses are not available in rural schools."

The BJP leader also alleged that south Delhi, which was once ahead of the rest of Delhi in development, was now facing lack of new development projects, water shortage and poor health services in exterior areas.

Bidhuri also took potshots at the handling of the food poisoning incident by the Delhi government's Education Department and said it was "extremely suspicious and deplorable".

"With an intent to suppress the incident, the authorities took children to a government hospital in Malviya Nagar, which is eight kilometres away, instead of Batra Hospital that is hardly half-a-kilometre away," he said.

--IANS

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