The Curious Case of An Indian Neta’s Qualification - RozanaSpokesman

The flip flops of Smriti Irani’s claims about her education are similar to the twists and turns of TV industry plots where she has come from..

Let us visualise a scenario. An employer hires a person and asks for the educational records, and other required documents before appointing. The person in question submits an affidavit claiming a graduate degree, and gets the job. A few years later, while renewing the contract, another such declaration is required, and the employee submits the declaration again.

Only this time, the employer finds out, that the earlier declaration made by the employer, of being a graduate is false, and that person is a first-year drop-out. What do you think must have happened? Yes! You are right in thinking that the said employee’s services were terminated. At least that is what happens in a normal day-to-day scenario. But not in our political scenario. 

In our political scenario, a person who lies about educational qualifications while contesting for the highest sanctorum of democracy, the Parliament, is alleviated to the rank of a Union Minister.

The above scenario matches what happened in the case of former HRD minister and present Textile Minister Smriti Zubin Irani. It was in the year 2004, that Smriti Irani, while submitting her nomination from Chandni Chowk in New Delhi, had claimed in her affidavit that she had done her Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Delhi University in 1996, via School of Open Learning (Correspondence). The problem here is not her education, but her later claims, and the questions on its authenticity.

In 2011, while filing her nomination for Rajya Sabha from Gujrat, Smriti Irani claimed in her affidavit that her highest qualification was Bachelor of Commerce Part I, from Delhi University School of Open Learning. Her consequent affidavits submitted while filing nomination for Lok Sabha election 2019 from Amethi state a slightly different fact, where she states her qualification as “Bachelor of Commerce Part I (Three-year degree course not completed)” through the School of Open Learning (Correspondence), University of Delhi in 1994.