Patna: Stalemate over the demand for cancellation of a recent Bihar PSC exam continued on Monday, despite Chief Secretary Amrit Lal Meena holding talks with a section of protesters over an alleged leak of question paper for the competitive test. Governor Rajendra Arlekar also summoned Bihar Public Service Commission Chairman Parmar Ravi Manubhai over the paper leak allegation.
Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, whose party colleague R K Mishra, a retired IPS officer, was among the delegates who met Meena, asked the protesters to give "48 hours to the Nitish Kumar government", and said they could resume their stir if no solution came forth by the time.
Talking to reporters after being briefed by the delegates, the political strategist-turned-activist told reporters, "The chief secretary has given a patient hearing. He could not come up with a solution because this is a decision that would require intervention from the chief minister who is expected to return from Delhi tonight".
"The chief minister has time till January 1 to resolve the crisis. I urge the students to wait for 48 hours. If nothing positive comes by then, they shall be entitled to resume their protest and we will extend our full support," said Kishor. However, Satyam, another delegate who also happened to be a disgruntled BPSC aspirant, said, "Our round-the-clock protest, which has been going on for more than a week at Gardani Bagh, will continue till a favourable announcement is made".
Satyam said he was happy with the response from the chief secretary who listened to them patiently. "But we also want a concrete outcome," he said. State Education Minister Sunil Kumar, whose comments were sought by journalists on the deadlock, said, "The BPSC is a competent authority. It is assessing the situation and will take an appropriate decision at an appropriate time".
Asked about the meeting between Arlekar and the BPSC chairman, the minister said, "We shall wait till the governor comes up with any suggestion in the matter." Notably, Independent MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav had met Arlekar earlier in the day and claimed, "The governor telephoned the BPSC authorities in front of me and expressed the desire to be briefed on the issue so that he could come up with appropriate intervention".
While it was not known what transpired between Parmar and the governor, a senior official indicated that the BPSC was sticking to its guns. "The commission is ready to give a hearing to the protesting candidates. But they must understand that cancelling the entire exam is out of the question", BPSC Secretary Satya Prakash Sharma told a news channel.
More than five lakh candidates had appeared for the Combined Competitive Examination conducted by the BPSC on December 13 when hundreds of candidates boycotted the test alleging that question papers had been "leaked". The commission debunked the allegations, claiming that a "conspiracy" was at work to get the exam cancelled.
However, re-examination was ordered for more than 10,000 candidates, who had been assigned Bapu Pariksha Parisar in the capital city, the lone examination centre across the state where the test was disrupted. Sources in the district administration here also said, "We have provided the BPSC with a list of alternative venues since the re-examination will not be held at Bapu Pariksha Parisar. The candidates will now be spread across 22 exam centres".
However, this has met with resentment from a section of aspirants who believe that for the sake of a "level-playing field", fresh examination should be ordered for all the candidates who had appeared at 912 centres. The protests have received support from most parties opposed to the state's ruling NDA.
The main opposition party RJD and its ally CPI(ML) Liberation's students' wing AISA staged state-wide protests on Monday in support of the stir. Workers of the RJD and AISA tried to stop a train in Bhojpur district and block road traffic in a number of towns, including Patna.
