Jan Suraaj Party, founded by Prashant Kishor, joined students protesting against alleged cheating in the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) examination. The protests were initially instigated by the candidates who had appeared for the exam held on December 13 in Patna and have since escalated and drawn the support of many political leaders, civil rights activists and educationists from within the state of Bihar. Sankar Kishor, who is currently campaigning for systematic change, got an opportunity to meet and support the protesting students by asking them to fight against the corrupt examination system in Bihar.
When explaining to the protesting students, Kishor admitted that before he began joining protest actions, he had debates with representatives of the educational field. He said, “There is no examination in Bihar, which remains untouched by corruption or paper leaks. It is now high time to fight it and come together and get rid of it,” calling on students to converge at the Gandhi Statue the following Saturday for more protests. He reassured the students with the promise that regardless of the decision made, he would support the students.
Claims of question paper leakage and other vices in the BPSC examination anchor the subsequent demonstrations. The students have criticized the fact that the question papers have been delayed, and some of the candidates were provided with their papers after one hour of the stipulated time. Furthermore, anxiety has raced to new levels in instances where candidates have accused the commission of taking and tearing their answer sheets to ensure they do not get excellent results again.
However, it can be noted that Bihar authorities have categorically dismissed any calls to scrap the entire exam. Rajesh Kumar Singh, the BPSC Examination Controller, denied the accusations, saying that the preliminary examination was only cancelled at one centre when protesters stormed the examination. He also levelled serious accusations against private coaching institutes for instigating the protests and termed the demand baseless.
The protest demonstrations have been augur by several politicians. Last week, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav met with the protesters and wrote to CM Nitish Kumar about cancelling the exam.
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