Jharkhand minister kicks up storm after kids fail exam

Jharkhand Academic Council chairperson Laxmi Singh has alleged that Human Resource Development minister Baijnath Ram demanded removal of her from the post because he was trying to "blame" her for the failure of his children in the intermediate examinations.

Ram had on Monday urged the chief minister to remove Singh on the ground of "non-performance" and that the people would blame his department in the non-performance of JAC.

"I don't know his grievance. Why is he speaking like this suddenly," Singh said, reacting to Ram's request to Chief Minister Arjun Munda to remove her from the post for her alleged non-performance.

The logical thing for the minister would have been to talk to her, Singh said adding that somehow Ram got the 'idea' that she was responsible for his son's and daughter's failure in the intermediate examinations.

"His son and daughter failed in the intermediate examinations. And he is trying to fix the blame on me. I am just a head of an examination conducting body. The teachers and the students are not ours. The evaluation is done by others. We are not in the picture at all," she said.

According to HRD sources, the minister had sent a letter to the HRD's principal secretary yesterday, asking him to initiate steps in ordering a probe into the top-ten list of this year's intermediate and matriculation examinations following "irregularities" in the results.