Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday held a meeting with Chief Ministers and Education
Ministers of Congress-ruled states to discuss the party’s plans for education reforms. The meeting was also attended by Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and in-charges of the respective states. According to Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, the discussions focused on the education sector, including the Congress-ruled states’ plans to develop themselves as “model states” in education. The meeting comes amid the Congress’ ongoing ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ campaign, through which Rahul Gandhi has been raising issues concerning students and the education system. The party has been organising interactions with students as part of the campaign. As part of the roadmap discussed on Tuesday, state-level education seminars will be organised with guidance from reputed education experts and other stakeholders. Venugopal said the Chief Ministers would prepare a detailed action plan within a month, based on inputs received from these seminars. The plans will focus on reforms in the education sector and steps to develop the respective states as model states for education. The Congress leader said in a tweet, "Within a month, CMs will prepare a thorough action-plan based on inputs from these seminars, to ensure reforms in education sectors and to become model states for education. A national-level seminar with experts will be held to chalk out the mechanism to roll out these plans." The Congress will also raise the issue of what it described as the RSS’ influence in the education sector. Venugopal said the meeting discussed the party’s concerns over the RSS allegedly using the education system to push its “divisive agenda”. “CMs will hold presentations on how RSS’ poisonous agenda is polluting our young minds through the education system, and how RSS-backed Vice Chancellors are being appointed to further this dangerous agenda,” Venugopal added in a post on X. The meeting is part of a series of discussions within the Congress on education and student-related issues, with the party linking its organisational outreach among students with the proposed policy and administrative initiatives in states where it is in government. The Congress plans to take forward the state-level consultations before holding the proposed national seminar to finalise the mechanism for implementing the education plans.
