In the last seven months two government job recruitment scams involving leakage of their examination question papers have come to light in Himachal Pradesh. Each time, the two principal political players in the hill state — the BJP and the Congress – have attempted to extract political mileage by portraying these paper leaks and irregularities in recruitments as failure of their rival’s governance.
After a police constable recruitment scam rocked the previous Jairam Thakur-led BJP government in May, the then main Opposition Congress party accused the BJP of indulging in alleged corruption and nepotism in the run-up to the November state Assembly elections. The Congress came to power after clinching the Assembly polls.
On Saturday, after the police arrested six people, including an official of the Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission (HPSSC), for allegedly leaking the question paper for the junior office assistant (IT) recruitment exam, the new Congress government claimed that it had fulfilled the promises the party had made during the polls. The JOA exam, which was due to be held on Sunday, was also cancelled by the Commission.
In its poll campaign the Congress had claimed that the BJP government had cancelled the scam-hit recruitment process for the post of police constables only after the former’s protests and that it took the government over three months to ascertain the paper leak.
More than 70 people were arrested after investigations revealed that some candidates had allegedly paid bribes to various officials in the police department. A special investigation team (SIT) formed by the Thakur government had also raided a printing press in Ghaziabad from where the question paper was suspected to have been leaked. In December, the CBI took over the probe from the SIT and filed multiple FIRs in the case.
The Congress had then also alleged that candidates paid Rs 6- 8.25 lakh for the leaked question paper. The recruitment scam, suspected to run into over Rs 250 crore, had “ruined the prospects of more than two lakh youths in the state”, the party had then charged, including corruption and unemployment among the major themes for its poll plank.
While the scale of the paper leak for the JOA exam is yet to be ascertained, police are suspecting that the arrested HPSSC officer is also involved in the constable recruitment scam.
Taking credit for the arrests, Naresh Chauhan, principal media adviser to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, said: “The previous government played with the lives of youngsters. We had promised that we would investigate scams that involved recruitments and fake jobs. We are already on the way to fulfil our commitments. This is a sign of strong leadership and the wrongdoings (of the previous government) will be corrected.”
Hitting back, BJP spokesperson Karan Nanda accused the Congress of politicising the issue and “not realising the gravity of the case.” “The complaint was made by a common person who had no political allegiance. The Congress party is yet to realise that cancelling the exam will impact the lives of more than two lakh people,” he said.
Nanda decried the statements made by the Congress as an “eyewash” and claimed that when the BJP was in power, the government had acted swiftly to catch the culprits behind the paper leak. “As soon as we got to know about the leak, an SIT was formed and dozens of arrests were made. The accused were dealt with in a strict manner. No such SIT has been formed by the Congress and there is no intent to carry out a serious investigation. This amounts to playing with the lives of the aspirants,” he charged.
