Earlier in the day, the Kashmiri Pandit Teachers’ Association essentially fact-checked Delhi CM and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal’s claim that his government provided permanent jobs to 233 Kashmiri Pandits who had been working on contracts in Delhi for decades.
However, in defiance of the facts, Kejriwal’s loyalists have been continuing to spread the myth that the AAP government in Delhi was steadfast in issuing orders to regularise 233 of these teachers within days of the issue being brought to their attention and that it was the central government that was against the regularisation of the KMTs.
In an interview on Times Now, the snippet of which was shared on Twitter by @thehawkeyex, the AAP MLA Atishi Marlena is heard claiming that it was not the AAP-led Delhi government but the Central government-appointed L-G who went against Kashmiri Migrant Teachers’ (KMT) regularisation.
The first qualification to survive in AAP is you must be a class of shameless who can speak lies to the teeth on nat’al tv. Listen to AAP’s full-time employee Atishi Marlena claiming that it was not Delhi govt but L-G who went against KMT’s regularisation.
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) March 29, 2022
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Parroting the same lie peddled by her chief Arvind Kejriwal, Atishi added that when the AAP government came to power in 2015, it was the decision of Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet to ensure the regularisation of the Kashmiri as soon as possible.
She added that the AAP govt had not challenged the court order directing them to regularise jobs for Kashmiri Pandit teachers, instead, it was the Centre-nominated lieutenant governor and his services department that had repeatedly challenged the order.
In the same thread of Tweets, @thehawkseyex shared the screenshot of a tweet posted by AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj. In his tweet, the senior AAP leader had carefully twisted his words to prove that the Kejriwal government was indeed in favour of regularising jobs of the Kashmiri Migrant Teachers’. He insinuated that the AAP govt had already taken concrete actions before even the Delhi HC delivered the judgement in favour of KMT and ordered the Government to regularize its services.
Saurabh Bharadwaj shared a copy of the Delhi Government’s response to the Delhi High Court after the latter ordered the Government to regularise KMT’s services. Bharadwaj cleverly captioned his Tweet to appear as if the Delhi Government was “informing” the HC that it had already passed a policy in favour of regularising jobs of the Kashmiri Migrant Teachers’.
In reality, however, the Delhi Government’s response to the Delhi High Court stated that it would ‘comply’ with the HC’s directives to expedite the process to regularise KMT’s services, as can be seen in the copy of the document shared by the Twitter user The Hawk Eye.
Another script by Saurabh Bharadwaj, that it was “informed” in HC that Delhi Govt passed a policy. Apply common sense! Why your counsel has to “inform” anything to court? The fact of the matter is, it was not “inform” but status update to “comply” court’s order to expedite.
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) March 29, 2022
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In his third tweet in the thread, @thehawkseyex Tweeted, “Bhardwaj & Atishi said it was Service Deptt under L-G that went to SC against HC’s order in 2018. However, their DoE (deptt of education) letter to UPSC in Sept’2017, following HC order, mentioned that AAP GOVT HAS OBTAINED L-G APPROVAL prior to seeking UPSC approval.
Bhardwaj & Atishi said it was Service Deptt under L-G that went to SC against HC’s order in 2018. However, their DoE (deptt of education) letter to UPSC in Sept’2017, following HC order, mentioned that AAP GOVT HAS OBTAINED L-G APPROVAL prior to seeking UPSC approval.
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) March 29, 2022
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The Twitter user shared screenshots of senior AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj’s Tweets wherein he had claimed that it was the Centre-nominated Lieutenant Governor who did not agree with Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to regularise the KMTs and opposed it in the High Court.
The AAP leader had further tweeted, that it was the service department under the LG/central government who later went on to the Supreme Court against the regularisation of Kashmiri Migrant teachers.
To prove, how Saurabh Bhardwaj was, indeed, lying blatantly, Twitter user @thehawkseyex used the screenshot of a media report published on September 17, 2017. The report was most likely the one published by Firstpost.
The report clearly mentioned that the AAP government had written to the UPSC following the Delhi High Court’s order to the government to take an expeditious decision on regularising Kashmiri migrant teachers. In the letter to the UPSC, the Kejriwal government had clearly stated that it had obtained the LG’s approval.
So it is clear that the AAP government is lying when it claims that the Centre-nominated Lieutenant Governor did not agree with Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to regularise the KMTs. If they themselves wrote to the UPSC in 2017 that the LG had approved the regularisation of Kashmiri migrant teachers in Delhi, how can they now blame the LG and claim that his department opposed the decision?
In fact, the series of lies peddled by the AAP loyalists to defend Arvind Kejriwal’s misinformation that his Government gave permanent jobs to 233 Kashmiri Pandits who had been working on contracts in Delhi for decades did not end here.
The Aam Aadmi Party further went on to discredit the press note by the Kashmiri migrant teachers association released on Monday, March 28, wherein it strongly condemned the statement given by the Delhi CM that it was the Delhi Government that regularised the services of Kashmiri Migrant Teachers (KMT). Signed by Dilip Bhan, Co-ordinator of the teachers’ association, the statement noted down the timeline of the court cases that led to the Supreme Court’s verdict forcing the Delhi government to give them jobs.
Despite several media houses explicitly reporting on how the Delhi government had fought years of a legal battle to oppose the regularisation of the Kashmiri migrant teachers and how the Government School Teachers Association (Migrant) issued a statement claiming the Delhi government regularised the teachers only after they approached the Delhi High Court, the AAP refuted the press note calling it fake.
Kashmiri Migrant Teachers’ association fact-checks Arvind Kejriwal
It becomes imperative to note here that in its press note, the Kashmiri migrant teachers association clearly wrote how it had first approached the court in 2010 after which a single bench delivered a judgment in favour of their regularisation, which was challenged by the government before a double bench. The association said this bench also directed that the teachers be regularised, which was challenged by the Kejriwal government in the Supreme Court, which dismissed its petition in 2018.
“In 2019, finally the government regularised Kashmiri migrant teachers, having no other option left. This indicates that the Delhi government was never interested in regularising the services of KMT. In fact, the Delhi government opposed the regularisation till the very end,” read the statement issued by the Government School Teachers Association (Migrant) on March 28.
Kejriwal claims the AAP government regularised KMTs in Delhi
The press note was released soon after, Kejriwal went into a damage control mode and claimed his Government gave permanent jobs to 233 Kashmiri Pandits who had been working on contracts in Delhi for decades. His statement came after his speech in Delhi Assembly went viral where he deemed ‘The Kashmir Files’ to be a movie based on ‘lies’. The Hindu community has criticized him for his insensitivity and called him out for denying Kashmiri Pandits’ genocide that led to their exodus from Kashmir valley.
