Bihar students to march towards CM’s residence over recruitment exam demands

Student groups in Patna are set to intensify their agitation on Tuesday with a march from Gandhi Maidan towards the Bihar Chief Minister’s residence over alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations and other employment-related demands.

The All-Bihar Student Union has called the march after staging a sit-in at Gardanibagh for the past week. The demonstration is scheduled to begin at 11 am and proceed through Dak Bungalow, the Planetarium and JP Golambar.

Fourteen student and youth organisations, including the Revolutionary Youth Association, SSAI and Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Morcha, have extended support to the demonstration. The Rashtriya Janata Dal has also backed the agitation.

Demonstrations are prohibited around the Chief Minister’s residence, and police are expected to prevent protesters from moving beyond JP Golambar. Security personnel have been deployed at major intersections across the proposed route to maintain order and regulate traffic.

The students are primarily demanding the cancellation and reconduct of a Bihar Public Service Commission examination. They have also sought a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the entire process under the supervision of a High Court judge.

Other demands include changes to librarian recruitment, the removal of contractual-service weightage in Bihar Staff Selection Commission recruitment and the cancellation of an inspector recruitment examination.

The protesters also want an eligibility test to be made mandatory before assistant professor recruitment.

Their wider charter seeks an annual calendar for all recruitment examinations conducted in Bihar, an increase in the maximum recruitment age to 45 and up to 90 per cent preference for local candidates under a domicile policy.

The groups have further called for stringent action against paper leaks and alleged examination manipulation. They are also demanding a single examination for the fourth phase of teacher recruitment, known as TRE-4, and the removal of negative marking.

With agency inputs