BPSC row: As protests continue, some candidates oppose re-exam for all as ‘gross injustice’

Protest in Patna over BPSC exam leak sparks controversy, with majority of students opposing retest.

Even as the protest in Patna by aspirants seeking cancellation of the 70th Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) Combined (Preliminary) Competitive Examination over an alleged paper leak continued on Wednesday (January 1, 2025), a section of those who took the exam contends that there should be no retest as that would be a “gross injustice to the majority of candidates”.

In the 70th BPSC Preliminary Test, while 3.28 lakh candidates had appeared at 912 centres across the State for the exam on December 13, at one centre, Bapu Pariksha Parisar in Patna, some students alleged there was a delay in getting question papers and it was leaked. The students came out of the centre and started protesting, but were dispersed by the district administration. While there was no protest by the aspirants for the next five days, the BPSC announced a retest at Bapu Pariksha Parisar on January 4.

However, the students started protesting for a re-examination of the BPSC PT for all from December 19 by organizing sit-ins at Patna’s Gardanibagh area. They were later, brutally baton charged, sprayed water through canons and politicians like Tejashwi Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal, Prashant Kishor of Jan Suraaj Party, Independent MP from Purnea Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav allegedly jumped into the protest to express their solidarity with the aspirants.

The mounting protests have made other candidates who do not want a re-examination fear that their voices will get drowned out. They claim that the exam was conducted in a very “peaceful, proper and decent manner” at their centres and there was “no evidence” of any paper leak.

“Some vested interest coaching mafias instigated some students by feeding cooked up stories into their minds. They fell prey to their sinister design. The whole protest is on unfounded grounds”, a BPSC aspirant from whose exam center was at Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district Nayan Kumar Jha told The Hindu over phone. Mr Jha, earlier, had cleared BPSC PT test twice and once he has appeared in the interview too but unfortunately couldn’t qualify the exam. “The exam was conducted peacefully at all centers baring one in Patna for which re-test was already announced. Initially, the students were not agitated but a few young men in their pursuit to become leaders, orchestrated the episode”, he added asserting, “there was no evidence that the question paper was leaked”. Mr Jha also decried several points raised by protesting aspirants for cancelling the test.

Another aspirant Tarique Asad Rizwee whose exam centre was at Katihar wondered how just over one per cent of aspirants could “agitate and demand a re-examination of the test” on behalf of 99% of students who do not want it as there was no evidence of any paper leak and the test was conducted by the Commission in a “very methodical and proper way”. Mr Rizwee is an IITian who graduated in mechanical engineering and claimed that he had “no problem at all” in appearing for the 70th BPSC test exam. “Those who are protesting for the retest are ignorant and their demand will be gross injustice with us, about 99% of the examinee who do not want it”, he asserted. Tarique has also been one among thousands of examinees who have sent emails to the BPSC chairman demanding not to conduct any “retest” of the exam.

Iqra who goes by a single name, was also an aspirant of the BPSC-PT whose exam centre was at Saharsa Zila School and she also said the exam was held in a “proper manner and there was no discrepancy at all during the exam process”. “We do not demand any retest…why should others suffer because just a handful of aspirants demanding its retest?”, she asked over the phone. Iqra had appeared in BPSC PT for the second time and she has graduated from Bhagalpur. She added, that the agitation by a few aspirants has seemingly been “high jacked” by a few coaching institute mafias and some politicians for their own political purposes and not for the students’ welfare.