HYDERABAD: The leakage of TSPSC question papers for recruitments to various posts is showing every sign of developing into a bitter political battle between the BRS and the extremely vocal BJP which has been searching for issues to beat the ruling party with, in the run-up to the Assembly elections towards the end of this year.
The ferocity of the BJP’s attack on the state government and its demand for the sacking of IT minister K.T. Rama Rao, along with a demand for a probe by a judge of the High Court, appears to have pushed the ruling party into a defensive mode with Rama Rao issuing a rebuttal and targeting state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar.
The approach of the BRS leadership appears to hinge on an argument that goes on the lines of ‘your party did too in other states’. In support of this strategy, it has been circulating data on the number of times question papers were leaked in BJP-ruled states since 2014.
This is not the first time that the issue of exams and their poor conduct, or handling of the results, have led to a lot of heartburn among people, with Opposition parties latching on to the issue and demanding accountability. Such was the case when intermediate exam results were announced in 2019 and within a week 19 students died by suicide after they were declared failed. Then too, allegations were levelled about a private firm that was given the contract for processing the results and doubts were raised if the firm, alleged to have contacts with those at the highest level in the government, did a proper job.
It can be said with a fair degree of certainty that the state government, despite its claims of deploying technology for conduct of exams, has either not done its homework or has failed in executing its plans in a fail-safe manner. As recently as in last October, when the now cancelled Group I preliminary exam was held, a number of candidates who made it to their centres could not take the test for the simple reason that the biometric attendance systems did not function properly.
The state government had then emerged relatively unscathed, but this time around, the response from the BRS indicates that it realises it is dealing with an extremely emotive issue. After all, one of the biggest promises it had made was providing jobs to the youths as part of its ‘neellu, nidhulu, niyamakalu’ slogan. The question paper leakage leaves some 50 lakh families in angst, and worry about the future job prospects, coupled with a nagging doubt that will now not go away about the honesty of the recruitment process.
Just for the Group I preliminary exams held last October some 3.8 lakh youth had registered but the fall-out of the question paper leakage has meant that it will be back to the study grind for them as the TSPSC on Friday announced that it was cancelling that particular exam.
Estimates are that the hopes and aspirations of youth from some 50 lakh families rest on the exams held, or are to be held by the TSPSC as part of the BRS government’s promise of filling some one lakh odd vacancies in the government. It is this crashing of hope that the BJP is seeking to channelize into support for itself, while the BRS has chosen to attack the attacker saying the latter has no credibility in the first place.
