Why Sisodia's 'Delhi for Delhiites' plan is counter-productive for AAP

AAP’s Education Minister in Delhi Manish Sisodia has proposed that 90 percent of seats in all fully funded colleges in Delhi University be reserved for the national capital’s students alone. While students from outside Delhi - a huge community populating the paying guest accommodations and students’ hostels of the city – can feel outraged at the suggestion, there are actually only about a dozen colleges that are “fully funded” by the government – a few thousand seats, at best. Still, the proposal couldn’t be more miscalculated. [caption id=“attachment_1321941” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Manish Sisodia and Arvind Kejriwal. PTI[/caption] As St Stephen’s College principal Valson Thampu writes in The Indian Express, not only would the appeasement be for but a minor percentage of Delhi’s population, but such a move would also draw attention away from the need to improve educational facilities, build more colleges. “Delhi, more than any other city, cannot afford to embrace an insular outlook. It belongs, and must belong, to the whole country. That does not mean the cosmopolitan, pan-Indian flavour of the city has to thrive at the expense of local aspirations. The perceived tension between these two goals — welcoming outstation aspirants and empowering domestic ones — issues from the failure of governments, especially in the last two decades, to address the educational needs of the people of Delhi,” Thampu writes. More significantly, the sons-of-the-soil agenda that may have worked marginally for regional parties such as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena, but meddling with the cosmopolitan flavour of Delhi, and especially its student community that has supported the Aam Aadmi Party wholeheartedly, could be counter productive for the year-old party. The Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) will also write about the development to the minister. “We have always been against any such move to reserve seats for Delhi students. DU is a central university and students from any part of the country should have equal access to every college under DU. State government should create more colleges and even universities if they want to give a better education facilities to Delhi students,” Abha Dev Habib, DUTA member, has been quoted as saying. That apart, whether in Mumbai or in Delhi, just who are the original domicile holders, what community or communities hold that distinction, whether or not the millions who made these cities their homes decades ago have an equal stake in the city – these are politically charged questions that AAP, with its pan-India agenda for change and progressive politics, must avoid at all costs. The Delhi for Delhi-ites and Mumbai for Mumbaikars ideas are hardly the road AAP wants to explore.