[1]NEW DELHI: Arvind Kejriwal’s letter demanding details of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s education has become a formal RTI query to which the Information Commission has asked for a response.
The PM’s office has been asked for details like his roll number so that the Delhi University and Gujarat University can dig out information about his degree for Mr Kejriwal.
The Delhi Chief Minister had written an acerbic letter to Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu yesterday accusing him of covering up the PM’s educational qualifications.That letter is being treated as an RTI query as “it is appropriate to disclose information when asked for by a Chief Minister,” says the Commission, which recently rejected a similar query.
Mr Kejriwal tweeted this evening and says The PM Modi had declared while contesting the 2014 national election that he has a BA degree from the Delhi University and a Master’s from the Gujarat University.
To an RTI petition on the PM’s degrees earlier this month, the Delhi University said it didn’t have details needed to track down such information, like his roll number.
Another query by a Delhi resident on “how many people with the name of Narendra Modi had passed BA in 1978 by correspondence” was also denied, partly on grounds of national security.
Mr Kejriwal wrote: “I have no objections to my record being made public. But I have learnt that you have blocked information on Narendra Modi’s degree. The entire country wants to know the truth. Despite that you refused to release details of his degree. Why did you do this? It is wrong.”
Last month, acting on an RTI query on Mr Kejriwal, the Information Commission had said the Chief Minister is a public authority and asked him whether he had any objections to his details being made public.
“You want everything about me out in the public domain, to which I have no objections. But I am amazed that you want to hide information on Narendra Modi’s degree. It raises the suspicion of people – is the commission really impartial?” Mr Kejriwal wrote.
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