CJP's School Theek Karo campaign forces BJP states to repair schools, impose filming curbs

New Delhi: The Cockroach Janta Party's "School Theek Karo" (fix the school) campaign, launched on August 15 by founder Abhijeet Dipke, has triggered a wave of government responses across BJP-ruled states — from multimillion-rupee infrastructure roadmaps to new restrictions on who may enter government school campuses.

The campaign, which sends volunteers into government schools to document deficiencies ranging from broken toilets and missing benches to drinking-water shortages and absent teachers, has forced at least four state governments to publicly respond within weeks of the first audits.

Haryana: sarpanch coordination and Rs 130 crore commitment

Haryana Education Minister Mahipal Dhanda announced that no one would be allowed inside a government school without first coordinating with the sarpanch, the School Management Committee and other responsible village figures. The statement followed a CJP video from Sangwan village showing insects in mid-day meal ration and dilapidated school walls. Within days, the School Education Department released Rs 130 crore in the first phase for roughly 2,800 identified development works — boundary walls, toilet shortfalls, disabled-access facilities — to be taken up in phases.

Dhanda later conducted a surprise inspection of a government school in Karnal's Raipur Rodan village, posting photos on Facebook. He said the government's "resolve is to ensure that students in every school across the state have access to better facilities, excellent education and a conducive learning environment."

Rajasthan: assault, building bans and a Rs 12,500-crore roadmap

The response in Rajasthan was sharper still. On August 21, a CJP team led by co-convenor Ashutosh Ranka was chased and attacked en route to inspect a government primary school in Jaipur's Bagru constituency. Ranka alleged his volunteers were beaten, their vehicle windows smashed, and one suffered a fractured arm. Dipke alleged the Rajasthan Police did nothing as BJP workers targeted CJP volunteers.

BJP leaders denied involvement, with Minister Avinash Gehlot calling the visitors "anarchic elements." In quick succession, the Rajasthan government barred outsiders from entering school campuses without prior permission, citing child safety and privacy. The Assembly admitted that 611 government schools have no buildings of their own. Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma's office announced a three-year, roughly Rs 12,500-crore roadmap to rebuild school infrastructure across all 41 districts — contrasted with past spending of around Rs 2,200 crore over five years. A new building was ordered for the Rampura Kanwarpura school, where students had been attending classes in a cattle enclosure because the main building was declared unsafe.

Maharashtra: FIR against Dipke and mission-mode review

In Maharashtra, where the campaign began at Dipke's native village in Hingoli on August 15, the pushback has turned legal. An FIR was registered in Latur after Dipke and associates allegedly entered a Zilla Parishad Urdu school in Jawali without authorisation while classes were on, sat with students, questioned them and filmed inside the campus. Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde held a four-hour review of the School Education Department on Saturday night, directing officials to work in "mission mode" on a comprehensive transformation — greater MLA and MP involvement, corporate participation in modernising campuses, and closer attention to student nutrition and the mid-day meal scheme.

Uttar Pradesh: from welcome to restriction

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath initially appeared to welcome the scrutiny, pointing to his government's Operation Kayakalp programme for toilets, drinking water and smart classrooms. Days later, the response hardened. Officials were directed to register cases against those spreading "misleading videos" about schools and colleges. District magistrates were ordered to regularly inspect schools. The state issued a 14-point checklist to nearly 40,000 primary and secondary schools covering basic infrastructure and cleanliness parameters. Education department orders widely seen as targeting "YouTubers" and social-media activists entering school campuses to film were criticised by opposition leaders as attempts to shield the administration from scrutiny rather than fix underlying problems.

Opposition response

The Aam Aadmi Party quickly launched its own "School Theek Karo" campaign, with Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh asking citizens to send videos of dilapidated schools and promising an exhibition to show their condition. AAP claimed there was no evidence of the BJP's "double engine governance" in UP.

For the CJP, the overwhelming response from governments validates the campaign's aim. CJP national secretary Aafreen Nawaz said she has watched repairs begin in real time. "I was checking a video of one of our teammates. He's got the whole JCB into the school and he's getting it renovated right at this moment as we speak," she said. "I have goosebumps."

What comes next

The CJP says the real test will be whether promises outlast the news cycle. Movements can cause a problem to become unignorable, but maintaining attention is harder. For now, however, chief ministers are standing up for their records, governments are issuing inspection and repair orders, and the condition of government schools has onto the electoral agenda — exactly the outcome the campaign set out to achieve.

Sources: The Hindu (Aug 31); The Print (Aug 29); India Today (Aug 31).