Recruitment scam in Gujarat: Can Telangana BJP demand PM’s resignation?

HYDERABAD: Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana have been crying buckets over the question paper leak scam ever since it rocked the Telangana State Public Service Commission. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) cracking the whip and acting decisively over the scam hasn’t cut much ice with the saffron brigade, which is seeing a gold mine of political mileage from it to corner the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in the state.

But here is a piece of scandalous news emanating from Gujarat, the citadel of BJP’s politics, that is certain to make its Telangana leaders including its mercurial chief Bandi Sanjay run for cover. On April 16, 2023, the Bhavnagar police registered a First Information Report (FIR) after busting a statewide dummy candidate racket for all major state government recruitment examinations. As part of the scam, proxy candidates will write the exams on behalf of job aspirants to give the latter undue advantage. Needless to say, the task is undertaken in exchange for a hefty price, ranging between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh, thus jeopardising the prospects and future of countless genuine job-seekers.

Interestingly, the dummy candidate scandal has been quietly thriving since 2012 until the police busted it and arrested six persons. Four of the accused, three being government employees, are touted to be masterminds of this racket. Two others among the six arrested are also government staffers who even doubled up as the proxy candidates for their prospective clients.

As per the FIR, in which charges were filed against a total of 36 persons, the entire racket is meticulously planned right from fishing prospective clients (job aspirants) to scouting for the ideal dummy candidates and to facilitate their appearance for the examinations in place of the original candidates. While the dummy candidates receive Rs 25,000 for doing the needful, the masterminds pocket a big cut after bribing at various levels for the tacit support to their nefarious crime.

The Bhavnagar police themselves have claimed that the accused had been thriving on the scam unabated since 2012. This comes in the wake of Gujarat’s dubious reputation of witnessing about a dozen incidents of question paper leaks during different state government recruitment tests over the last decade. Rampant corruption and rigging of the recruitment process are the icing on the cake in Gujarat. Reports even suggest that the State, whose administrative efficacy is often spoken in over-hyped tone, could not conduct a single recruitment examination without it being marred by a question paper scandal.

This precisely vindicates Telangana IT Minister K T Rama Rao’s recent befitting reply to the state BJP leaders at the height of the TSPSC question paper leak scandal. KTR, while advocating a holistic approach to address the systemic flaws to remove the scope for such offences, rebuked the ignorance of the BJP leaders in the state of what has been happening across the country, especially in Gujarat. He chided Bandi Sanjay for demanding his resignation and sought the Karimnagar BJP MP’s explanation on the dime a dozen question paper scandals happening in Gujarat. He wondered if Bandi Sanjay would display similar courage to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the scandals in the latter’s home state.

Despite the stinging retort, Bandi Sanjay and co have been unrepentant in their attack on the BRS government in Telangana. Their unabashed campaign has been going on unhindered even when the SIT is sparing none in its crackdown.

Now that the latest recruitment scandal in Gujarat exposed their hypocrisy and double standards, the BJP bandwagon in Telangana has nowhere to hide. It would also be interesting to see how they would justify the difference between the TSPSC case and the scams in Gujarat.