AAP Suspends Maur MLA an Hour After His Emotional Video on Teacher Shortage in Govt Schools

The Aam Aadmi Party has suspended its Maur legislator Sukhveer Singh Maiserkhana, the only MLA in Punjab's 117-member Assembly who sends both his children to government schools, after he publicly accused his own government of neglecting the teacher shortage in state-run schools.

The suspension order, issued by AAP state general secretary Harchand Singh Barsat on Saturday, said it had come to the party's notice that Maiserkhana was 'involved in anti-party activities and indiscipline', and announced that his primary membership stood suspended with immediate effect.

The action came barely an hour after the first-time MLA released an emotional video on Facebook in which he said he regretted enrolling his children in government schools because their 'future was at stake' amid the acute shortage of teachers.

The MLA's emotional appeal

In the video, Maiserkhana said he had repeatedly raised the issue of vacant teacher posts with senior party leaders, including former Delhi education minister and Punjab affairs in-charge Manish Sisodia, but nothing had been resolved. He claimed that after he raised the matter with the leadership, he was told Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had called him — but the meeting never happened.

'How long will I tolerate? What did I do wrong to the party?' the MLA asked, adding that the party leadership's apathy had forced him to raise the issue publicly. He said he knew he would be denied a ticket in the upcoming elections, and even that he may be booked, but insisted he would keep fighting for people's children.

Questioning the government's much-publicised 'education revolution', Maiserkhana claimed that even the Schools of Eminence — the model institutions set up by the AAP government — did not have adequate teachers.

'I am the only MLA in the 117-member House who sends his children to government schools. My children study where the children of 3 crore common Punjabis also study... and that's why I am speaking today as a father. The future of my children is at stake,' he said.

His son studies in a School of Eminence and his daughter in another state-run school. In March this year, an investigation by The Indian Express had found that while 36 MLAs in the Assembly had school-going children, all except Maiserkhana sent their wards to private schools in India or institutions abroad.

Opposition pounces

The opposition was quick to seize on the suspension. The BJP said the MLA's remarks had 'punctured the education revolution narrative' of the ruling party, with former Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu saying the MLA's tears exposed the ground reality behind the government's claims.

Congress MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa called it ironic that a sitting AAP MLA had raised basic concerns about school repairs and teacher appointments yet claimed nobody listened. 'If an Aam Aadmi MLA cannot even meet his own Chief Minister, then what does that say about the ordinary people who are trying to be heard?' he asked.

Maiserkhana, an agriculturist, had won the Maur seat in Bathinda district by a margin of over 35,000 votes in the 2022 Assembly elections. When asked by The Indian Express earlier why he had chosen government schools, he had said: 'If we won't admit our own children in government schools, how can we convince the people to do that? That is how a chain reaction starts. Fifty more parents had followed me.'

The MLA had shifted his son from a local convent school to a government school during the Covid pandemic, while his daughter was enrolled directly in a state-run school — a decision he said was meant to keep his children connected to their community and mother tongue and to build public confidence in government schools. On Saturday, he said he now regretted that decision.