UPSC row: Unhappy with government's move, aspirants vow to continue fight

Not satisfied with the changes announced by the government in the Union Public Service Commission exam, scores of civil services aspirants on Monday vowed to continue their fight for “complete scrapping” of the Civil Services Aptitude Test paper and decided to shift their agitation to Jantar Mantar in central Delhi.

The civil services aspirants, who had been protesting against the CSAT format in Mukherjee Nagar of north Delhi for the past 25 days, will now hold protest at Jantar Mantar.

“We are not satisfied with Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh’s speech in Lok Sabha regarding CSAT. We demand complete scrapping of CSAT. We have decided to continue our fight from Jantar Mantar,” Pawan, an UPSC aspirant who has been leading the protest, said.

The minister on Monday announced in Parliament that English marks of CSAT-II will not be included for gradation or merit, and candidates of 2011, when CSAT was first introduced, may get another chance to appear for the test next year.

Pawan said this was not what the protesters have been demanding. “We never asked the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to modify CSAT pattern. Instead, our demand is to abolish this test for the welfare of lakhs of students who had studied in Hindi medium,” he added.

“Before elections, BJP had promised to scrap this test. The BJP-led central government has cheated lakhs of UPSC aspirants who had hoped that the new government would pay heed to their demand,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue K N Govindacharya has requested the Lok Sabha Speaker to initiate action against the Union Public Service Commission chairman and the secretary of Department of Personnel and Training for violating ‘Rajbhasha Sankalp’, which was passed by both Houses of Parliament.

In 2011, the civil services exam pattern was changed by the UPSC without any mandate and “in violation of ‘Rajbhasha Sankalp’, he said. In his memorandum, Govindacharya demanded that UPSC exam papers be originally framed in Hindi, and then be translated to English.

He also expressed his displeasure over non-action on his representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard.

Image: Members of National Students' Union of India protest against the CSAT exam. Photograph: PTI