Rahul Gandhi on Monday assured a delegation of Civil Services aspirants that no injustice will be done to them and he will raise their concerns at all appropriate fora. The 21-member delegation of aspirants led by NSUI National President Rohit Sharma and General Secretary Mohit Sharma and Delhi State President of NSUI Vikas Chhikara met Mr. Gandhi at his residence, said the national spokesperson of the Congress Youth wing Amrish Ranjan Pandey.
In the hour-long meeting with the Congress vice president, the aspirants talked about the problems they are facing due to the new exam pattern and the CSAT. “Congress is always with the students. No injustice will be allowed to be done to students coming from poor background,” Mr. Gandhi is learnt to have told the aspirants.
Civil Services aspirants have been protesting in the national capital and demanding change in the pattern of preliminary examination. The issue has been raised in Parliament too. The government has urged them to call off their protest which intensified from Thursday after the UPSC, which conducts the examination, started issuing admit cards to the aspirants for the preliminary exam scheduled to be held next month.
Amid protests against the new exam pattern, the government had on Sunday convened a high-level meeting to resolve the issue. The meeting was chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh among others.
A decision on whether or not to change the syllabus of Civil Services examination and postpone the preliminary test, slated to be held on August 24, is likely to be taken soon. A three-member government appointed committee is looking into the demands of Civil Services aspirants to change the pattern of the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) to give level-playing field to those coming from rural areas.
