UPA school excited over new student, Pawar unhappy

New Delhi : Trouble is brewing in the Delhi-based UPA School with a student Sharad Pawar strongly protesting against being removed from the front bench in the classroom and asked to move back. Pawar and another student from Maharashtra, Praful Patel, stayed away from school on Thursday.

Both Pawar and Patel were admitted to the UPA school under the Right to Equity (RTE) Act from Maharashtra and their families have now alleged discrimination against their children. When Pranab Mukherjee, the deputy monitor of the class took a TC and moved to a boarding school in a hill station called Raisina Hill, Pawar assumed he will take Mukherjee’s place. That was not to be with another student, Antony, made to sit next to class monitor Manmohan Singh.

The UPA school management told Tenali Rama that the academic performance of Pawar and Patel was found unsatisfactory and therefore the decision.

“Sharad plays cricket all the while, neglecting his studies, while Praful is such a football-crazy kid, I tell you. And then he keeps the company of that Vijay Mallya (in pic) who does not even pay his car driver his salary. I totally disapprove,” disclosed Sonia Gandhi, the school principal.

But Pawar and Patel are not without support. Another student from Maharashtra, Suresh Kalmadi, has also voiced his protest, saying he was suspended from the school only because some sports equipment that belonged to the school was found at his home. Sources say another Maharashtra student, Prithviraj Chavan too is unhappy that he was asked to leave the UPA school and forced to take admission in a Marathi medium state board school in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the UPA school is excited over a new student called Rahul Gandhi who will take admission next semester. Tenali Rama has learnt that he is gaining entry in the middle of the term because he comes with a strong recommendation. This despite Rahul having flunked his exams at his previous two schools in Patna and Lucknow and inspite of reports that he has a tendency to bunk school to holiday abroad. Sources say his tution master, one Digvijay Singh from Bhopal, is not a good influence on him and encourages him to tear the answer sheets of other students. 

In this student’s case, something unheard of is also likely to take place. Rahul Gandhi will be taught only the subjects of his choice and his exam paper will be evaluated not by external invigilators but by fellow students – Salman Khurshid and Rajiv Shukla, who are his friends.