From last few days’ my neighbor Sharma Ji (changed surname) is elated. His purpose of life seems resurrected.On the day his son was born, Sharma Ji had decided to make him an Engineer. What better and what more than IIT-JEE? He has been nurturing him like a Gardner throughout these long years. But at the most crucial time, when he was set to enroll his son for IIT-JEE preparatory coaching in class-VI, the hurricane struck. Somehow, he got to know that the most-hated Indian Mr. Arvind Kejriwal had also qualified India’s toughest under-graduate examination.

Initially, he thought it of an aberration among the otherwise promising mass and remained focused on his son. Off late he was boggled up seeing the stupendous rise in the stupidity level of that single aberration. He was so much frightened in the thoughts that he was getting dreams of his son calling people for no reason and saying “Namaskar…” He had very unwillingly decided the alternate career for his son sacrificing all his hopes and happiness.

But why is he elated now? Is Arvind Kejriwal not an IITian ?

There is no denying that Mr. Kejriwal studied in IIT-Kharagpur. He completed the course from the college and according to some sources was the drama secretary of the college (Do we need to verify the source?). The headline is that he never qualified for IIT joint entrance examination. He never got any All India Rank.

The same was revealed by IIT Kharagpur in response to the RTI filed by a vigilant Delhite who must have doubted him for flawed logic of odd-even. In response to a very straight forward query – The basis whereby Mr. Arvind Kejriwal entered the B.Tech program and his All India Rank in any competitive entrance exam such as JEE etc, the institute replied ” IIT-JEE AIR – Not available”.

The obvious question comes immediately to mind is how Arvind Kejriwal got admitted in IIT-Kharagpur? To which we need to refer a report by Hindustan times dated back in July 2010.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/iit-kharagpur-kept-aside-illegal-quota-for-staff/story-k3ujl59h9JhdUDi5DC6RjP.html

The newspaper writes, “The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur was secretly — and illegally — keeping aside a discretionary admission quota for children of its teachers and staff for over four decades, admitting dozens of students to seats they failed to secure through the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination. The student merely needed 60 per cent marks in their Class XII Board examination and should have appeared in the IIT-JEE to be eligible for the quota seats, doled out at the institute director’s discretion”

The documents were accessed by HT using RTI from the institute itself. The above report very clearly states that it was not impossible to get admitted in IIT-Kharagpur without clearing IIT-JEE.

Now the bigger question is how Arvind Kejriwal, the self-assumed poster boy of Aam- Aadmi got the admission through the staff quota.

Various unverified reports suggest that Kejriwal’s father who was a BIT Mesra alumnus himself was working as an electrical engineer in Jindal group and had some very good connections with the big shots of the company. Through the conventional jacking system, he may have had admitted his son in the most prestigious institute of that time.

Kejriwal has taken immense mileage in his political career due to his educational background. He had automatically won the battle of perception of being intelligent and honest. His followers very proudly flaunt the educational background of his leader. Almost whole of his political career had been catalyzed by him being an IITian. In such a state even an iota of doubt about his admission in IIT- Kharagpur is grave.

Moreover, it is immoral to relentlessly attack PM’s educational qualification before clarifying the controversies surrounding his own qualification. Now when the Finance minister has shown the degree of the Prime Minister in full public galore and Kejriwal’s commander in chief, Ashutosh has personally verified it by going to the university, can we expect Arvind Kejriwal to come out clean on his admission to IIT – Kharagpur ? No, I am not demanding it for myself -I genuinely don’t care, but for my neighbor Sharma ji who needs to be assured. The preparation time for his son is running out fast.