Doesn’t BJP know that TSPSC is a Constitutional body; it doesn’t work under Chief Minister?

HYDERABAD: The Telangana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), apparently, doesn’t know that a State Public Service Commission is a Constitutional body. It’s chairman and members cannot be debarred by anybody.

In a memorandum submitted to Telangana Governor, the BJP put across five demands which gave rise to questions that only the BJP can answer.

The memorandum was signed by leaders of considerable legislative experience and some of them were astute bureaucrats. One of them is a former member of the Telangana State Public Service Commission.

The prominent signatories included: national vice-president of the party and former minister D K Aruna, former minister Etala Rajender, former TSPSC member Ch Vithal, newly-elected MLC A V N Reddy, former Minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy, former MP Boora Narsaiah Goud, former MLC N Ramachander Rao, retired Principal Secretary R V Chandrvadam, retired DGP-rank officer T Krishna Prasad, and others.

The demands submitted by these experienced and knowledgeable leaders intrigued me and gave rise to questions to each of those demands.

Below are the demand and highlighter in bold letters are the questions raised against each demand.

The demands were:

1. Chief Minister Sri K. Chandrasekhar Rao under whom, TSPSC functions directly should own responsibility and resign immediately.

Does TSPSC work under CM ?

2. We believe that this question paper leakage scam is a failure of IT security protocols and therefore the IT Minister Sri K.T. Rama Rao should own responsibility and resign immediately.

Do IT security protocol of all departments and constitution bodies come under IT minister in a state?

3. Similarly, the Chairman, all the Board Members and the Secretary of the Telangana State Public Service Commission should immediately be debarred and should be replaced with a new board for the new commission.

How can the chairman and members be debarred and who should do it and by what means? Do the BJP leaders understand the constitutional provisions of public service commissions?

4. We demand judicial enquiry into the matter by a sitting judge of the Hon’ble High Court.

How many times in BJP-ruled states, enquiry by sitting High Court judges were instituted into paper leaks?

5. The Telangana state BJP demands that all the candidates who prepared for the examination should immediately be compensated with Rs.1,00,000 (Rupees one lakh) each by the state government. This is in view of the emotional trauma and financial loss suffered by them.

How many students were paid any compensation by the BJP-ruled State Governments in all the 118 question paper leak incidents in the last 9 years and how many state budgets would it be equivalent to? Do BJP leaders understand economics at all ?

While these questions are to be answered, one has to take cognisance of the observations made by former TSPSC chairman Ghanta Chakrapani.

:”…the position of PSC chairman is so powerful as per the constitution. The Governor appoints the Chairman and Members of the PSC, they can be removed only by the President through impeachment process Article 317.”

Without understanding the basics, it’s surprising that such learned people alleged that the PSC worked directly under the Chief Minister and demanded that the chairman and members be “debarred”.

If not Constitutionally, leaders must at least be politically correct.