Punjab Congress President Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, on Monday, took a sharp swipe at Chief Minister (CM) Bhagwant Singh Mann and the AAP government for celebrating the state’s number one ranking in the latest National Achievement Survey (NAS), reminding them of their past dismissal of a similar achievement under the previous Congress regime.Warring pointed out that when Punjab had topped the NAS in 2021, AAP leaders, including then Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, had rubbished the results as “manipulated” and alleged a “hidden understanding” or “secret friendship” between the Congress government in Punjab and the BJP-led Centre.“Should we tell you the same things now?” Warring asked the AAP leadership sarcastically. He asserted that Punjab’s strong performance again this time was largely due to the “firm and sound foundations” laid by the Congress government between 2017 and 2022.“You are reaping the harvest of our hard work,” he told the Mann government, adding that the AAP’s education policy was “limited and restricted to advertisements only.”The Congress chief painted a grim picture of the state of school education under AAP’s rule, describing it as being in a “deep crisis” marked by declining enrolment, acute teacher shortages, infrastructure gaps, and loss of public trust in government schools.Citing official data, Warring said the number of primary schools with fewer than 15 students had risen from 237 to 276, while upper primary schools in the same category increased from 54 to 89 — a clear sign of students shifting away from government institutions.Even in Chief Minister Mann’s home district of Sangrur, as many as 1,661 students had left government primary schools, he claimed, while alleging instances of “fake enrolments” in some places.On the teacher front, Warring said 6,423 posts were lying vacant across different levels, severely affecting classroom teaching. He pointed out that retention at the higher secondary level had dropped to around 66 per cent, meaning nearly one-third of students were discontinuing studies.He flagged mismanagement in pupil-teacher ratios, with over 18 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of upper primary schools facing imbalance. As many as 32 villages still lack a primary school and six lack an upper primary school, raising serious questions over the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.Warring further alleged that 179 infrastructure projects remained incomplete, 733 had not even begun, and over 1,000 works were pending.“The AAP government’s claims of an ‘education revolution’ are far from ground reality,” he said, urging the ruling party to stop taking credit for the predecessor government’s achievements.Instead, he suggested the Mann government should immediately fill all vacant teacher posts, ensure a school in every village as per RTE norms, complete all pending infrastructure projects in a time-bound manner, and give priority to education over publicity.The sharp attack comes a day after CM Mann highlighted Punjab’s top ranking in school education based on the latest survey, crediting teachers and students for the achievement.