Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, And Bihar Fumble As They Fail To Crack Government Recruitment Exams

The Rajasthan High Court's order on 9 January directing the maintenance of status quo on the 2021 sub-inspector (SI) recruitment examination has thrown light on the mismanagement of government job exams.

Rajasthan is facing troubles in conducting exams, Uttar Pradesh (UP) struggled in 2024, and Bihar recently witnessed protests against the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) preliminary exam.

The Rajasthan SI exam was conducted in September 2021 when the Congress government was in power. However, the malpractice allegations surfaced after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2023.

It was alleged that some staff members of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) leaked question papers for money and for the benefit of their relatives.

Subsequently, over 150 individuals were arrested, including 50 selected candidates.

Despite these revelations and the recommendations of the Advocate General, the state police's special operations group, and the Rajasthan police headquarters, the Bhajan Lal Sharma government did not cancel the recruitment process.

After students protested in November 2024, the petitioners reached the Rajasthan High Court, demanding the cancellation of the exam. The court stayed all further processes on 19 November 2024.

In the next hearing on 9 January 2025, the Sharma government said it did not want to cancel the exams 'in haste' without concluding the investigation on whether cancelling exams was the only option.

So, the Rajasthan High Court decided to maintain the status quo by preventing the state government from proceeding with the passing-out parade and field posting of the selected candidates after their training.

The Rajasthan government may be right not to cancel the exam. After all, conducting an exam again comes at a huge cost, and the deserving candidates who qualified on merit lose out. However, the state government is unable to manage the perceptions around its moves.

Even the court questioned the government, asking why, when its own committees and agencies had recommended cancelling the exam, it did not trust them. The state responded that an investigation was underway.

The bigger question is why the government was not able to conclude its investigation in a year. It doesn't strengthen the government's case when its own minister, Kirodi Lal Meena, questions its decisions.

Meena has been supporting the protesting students for a long time. In some instances, he pacified students when the protests turned aggressive, and at other times, he prevented their detention by police.

Meena has been demanding the cancellation of the SI recruitment exam. "What will be the law and order situation of the state when undeserving candidates become Station House Officers?" he has asked.

Neighbouring UP also failed to conduct a police recruitment exam to fill up constable posts in one go.

After the cancellation of the exam held on 17-18 February 2024 on account of paper leaks, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath resolved to conduct the exam again within six months.

While the constable exam was conducted successfully in August 2024, the same could not be said about the exam to recruit review officers and assistant review officers (RO/ARO). This exam was originally held on 11 February 2024 and then cancelled due to a paper leak.

The UP Public Service Commission (UPPSC) announced in November 2024 that the RO/ARO exam would be held in December. However, the scheduled exam was postponed due to protests against the conduct of exams in different shifts and the arbitrariness of normalisation.

The protests, which went on for four days in November, affected Adityanath's reputation because the administration initially tried to ignore the protesters and later tried to intimidate them to drop the protests.

Better sense prevailed eventually, and the UPPSC partially agreed to the aspirants' demand by conducting the provincial civil services (PCS) preliminary exam in a single shift, but the same was not accepted for the RO/ARO exam because a larger number of candidates appear for it, making it harder to conduct the exam in a single shift.

With the decision pending on whether the RO/ARO exam will be conducted in single or multiple shifts, the UP government is yet to decide on the date for the re-exam.

As per media reports, the RO/ARO exam will now be conducted only after the Mahakumbh Mela, which will be held in Prayagraj from 14 January to 26 February.

This would mean that the Adityanath government would not have conducted a re-exam to fill RO/ARO posts even over a year after the paper leak.

Meanwhile, Bihar is witnessing a turmoil over the alleged paper leak in the BPSC preliminary exam held on 13 December 2024. Students have been protesting for nearly two weeks, demanding a re-exam.

While leaders like Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor and Purnia member of Parliament (MP) Pappu Yadav have supported students' demands, the Bihar government is firm on its stance that the paper was not leaked.

Going ahead with the exam process, the BPSC has also released the answer key for the 13 December paper, while the protesters are planning a Bihar Bandh on 12 January, which is National Youth Day.

The police action against protesting aspirants and the forceful detention of Kishor from the protest site to disrupt his hunger strike have given enough reasons to the protesters to hold a grudge against the government.

If the protests go on and the Bihar government fails to persuade the protesting aspirants, it might have to pay a steep price by losing power in the assembly election set for later this year.

What's common to the Rajasthan, UP, and Bihar cases is the inability of the state governments to not only conduct fair examinations but also to take aspirants in confidence when they press for their demands.

Even after repeated failures, the states have not been able to devise a strategy to conduct foolproof recruitment exams. This is not only squashing away our demographic dividend, but also the youth is losing faith in their governments.