Alagu Varsini, a 2012 batch IAS officer from Telangana has raked up a political row with comments about students cleaning toilets at their schools. Her comments have come under fire with opposition demanding her transfer from her post of secretary of the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society.
According to reports, the IAS officer allegedly said that students studying in government schools are not from a posh background and should wash their own toilets, do their own cooking and sweep their rooms.
The opposition, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), has called her statement as displaying discriminatory attitudes towards students from marginalised communities, prompting the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) to take note of the incident while also seeking details.
NCSC issued notice seeking detail
The NCSC issued a notice to Telangana chief secretary K Ramakrishna Rao and director general of police (DGP) Dr Jitender, asking about the comments. It has sought replies within a fortnight.
The BRS has alleged that Varsini's comments are not only derogatory but can be seen as pushing the new generation of Dalit children into a similar situation as their previous generations.
Party leader K Kavitha accused the Congress government in the state of taking away grants from Gurukul schools that enabled them to hire cleaners and caretakers. She targeted Revanth Reddy for being “anti-poor, anti-Dalit” and demanded the officer's removal as well as the restoration of social welfare grants in these schools.
Varsini's comments recently went viral after an audio clip surfaced in which she was heard saying “holistic education includes teaching sanitation and personal hygiene”.
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