PM Modi lied to people about his BA degree, alleges Arvind Kejriwal

“It emerges that he has done neither a BA nor an MA. Both degrees are fake. Firstly, he lied to the entire country, secondly, he lied in an affidavit and thirdly, the degrees are forged. This is a case of cheating. If the PM is accused of cheating under (IPC section) 420, this is a serious matter,” he added.

However, senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Kejriwal was only “damaging the dignity” of his own office. “It’s unfortunate that AAP has raised questions on PM Modi ‘s educational qualification. It is sad that a chief minister is raising such baseless allegations against the PM. It is his habit to raise such untrue and baseless charge… By raising this issue, they are trying to protect the Congress, which has been facing public criticism on corruption. By doing this, he is also damaging the dignity of the post of CM.”

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In his affidavit for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi had stated that he received a BA degree from DU in 1978 and a MA degree from Gujarat University.

The Central Information Commission (CIC) had asked both DU and the Gujarat University to provide information about the Prime Minister’s educational degrees. Responding to the CIC’s order, Gujarat University Vice-Chancellor M N Patel said Modi had completed his post-graduation in political science in 1983 and scored 62.3 per cent as an external student of the varsity.

Refusing to comment on Kejriwal’s allegations, DU Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi had said Thursday, “We received the CIC’s order yesterday. Our RTI cell is looking into it. I haven’t had the chance to follow it up with them.” He could not be contacted Friday despite repeated attempts.

Terming the issue “unfortunate”, the Congress also asked the PM to place his degrees in the public domain. “It is unfortunate that the PM’s educational qualification is under serious cloud and suspicion, permitting everybody to raise doubts on its authenticity or veracity. The PM, on the contrary, has chosen to maintain silence,” said Congress communication department head Randeep Surjewala.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal Friday claimed that a different person, also named Narendra Modi, had been a student of DU in 1975.

“With great responsibility, I started talking about this day before yesterday. In DU, there is neither an enrollment form nor is his (Modi’s) name in the register. He has not obtained a degree. His name is not even in the school of open learning. His name is nowhere. After all the probing, we found one Narendra Modi who had taken admission in 1975. He was from Alwar. His date of birth is 1958 while the Prime Minister’s date of birth is 1950. He is a completely different Narendra Modi,” said the chief minister.

“The issue is not about how educated he is. Even if he was Class X or Class XII pass, we would have accepted it… people gave him a lot of votes, they reposed their faith in him. We respect that faith and that mandate. But there are things that point towards cheating,” he added.

On how AAP managed to access DU’s records, Kejriwal claimed the party had volunteers in various DU departments who had carried out an “investigation” into the matter and procured copies of various documents.

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