Aspirants' Protests Against UPPSC Intensifies On Day Four—Here's What Has Happened So Far

On the fourth day of aspirants' protests against the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC), the protestors broke barricades to reach gate #2 of the UPPSC office in Prayagraj and protest there.

The protest has been mostly peaceful but chaos was created on Thursday (14 November) morning when police personnel in civil clothes started forcefully removing aspirants from the protest site.

The police also detained the leader of the protest Ashutosh Pandey and a few other protestors. The other aspirants protested against it, leading to minor injuries to a few of them.

The police have since then increased personnel deployment, anticipating the visit of Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav. They might try to disperse protesters once again.

The aspirants are protesting their demand to conduct Review Officer (RO)-Assistant Review Officer (ARO) and Provincial Civil Service (PCS) prelim exams in a single shift on a single day.

They fear that the normalisation formulae, which will be used to bring scores of different shifts to a similar level, will introduce arbitrariness and non-transparency in the exam results, causing them loss.

Opposition leaders like Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati have extended support to the aspirants and called their demand genuine questioning the UP government's inefficiency.

On Wednesday night, Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, Police Commissioner Tarun Gaba and District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Mandad reached the UPPSC office to meet the protestors.

They appealed to the aspirants to end protests and wait for a resolution through student delegation meetings with top officials. However, the aspirants refused to end protests until their demands were met.

Aspirants used songs like Piyush Mishra's 'Aarambh hai prachand' for protests. Posters saying, "Banne aaye the adhikari, UPPSC ne banaya andolankari" were also seen on the protest side.

Akhilesh Yadav accused the UP government of playing with the future of youth and lathi-charging on protesting aspirants. He called the UPPSC incapable.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya assured that the government is taking the demands of the children seriously and the issue of normalisation will be cleared out.

"BJP stands with the students and youth. Instructions have been given to the officials to talk to the students and find a proper solution. Children should be able to utilise their time in studies, not in protests," he said.