Bandi Sanjay Kumar leads aspirants' march in Hyderabad over exam postponement demand

Hyderabad, Oct 19 : The police in Hyderabad on Saturday stopped Union Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay Kumar who was leading a march to the Telangana Secretariat along with students demanding the postponement of the Group-I Main examination of the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC).

Tension prevailed at Ambedkar Statue on the Tank Bund as Bandi Sanjay Kumar sat there along with protesters demanding that the government withdraw the Government Order (GO), which tweaked the reservation rules.

Backing the demand of the candidates, Bandi Sanjay Kumar reached the Ashok Nagar area, the epicentre of the protests during the last three days.

The BJP leader led a huge rally from Ashok Nagar and it was heading to the Secretariat to meet the Chief Minister or Chief Secretary to make a representation over the demand to postpone the examination, scheduled to begin on October 21.

As the tension mounted, police stopped the rally.

Bandi Sanjay Kumar found fault with the police action and insisted that they be allowed to go to the Secretariat.

However, the police officers told him that there was no permission for the rally. They sat on the road at the Ambedkar statue to lodge their protest.

Bandi Sanjay Kumar demanded the state government reconsider its stand. Stating that the students had been protesting for a week, he asked how they can write the exam in this situation.

He alleged that the police were resorting to highhandedness by beating up female students and even pregnant women.

Bandi Sanjay Kumar said that he came to meet the students and support their demand as a BJP worker and not as Union Minister of State. He demanded that the government scrap 'GO 29' that tweaked the reservation policy.

The Group-I Main exams to fill 563 posts in various departments are scheduled to be held from October 21 to 27.

The Telangana High Court on Friday dismissed two petitions challenging the order of the single judge, refusing to order postponement of the exam.

A single-judge bench on October 15 dismissed the petitions of some candidates for postponement of the exams.

Students have been protesting at the Ashok Nagar area, which has many hostels and coaching institutes.

The candidates demanding the postponement of exams argue that 'GO 29' will rearrange the prelims list upside down.

About 22 cases challenging the GO are pending in the High Court. They say that the GO tweaked the reservation policy and this would limit the chances of candidates from reserved categories.

A total of 31,383 candidates are scheduled to appear in the exam to be conducted at 46 centres in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, and Medchal Malkajgiri districts.

These candidates qualified for the Group-1 Mains examination out of around 3.02 lakh people who appeared for the preliminary examination held in June.