Hours after the protests erupted in several parts of the State over the sudden postponement of preliminary examinations of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC)-2020, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced on Thursday evening that his Government would re-schedule the MPSC within next eight days.
Interacting with the people across the state live through the social media, Uddhav said that the state government would announce the new dates for the MPSC preliminary examination tomorrow.
In another relief to the students appearing for the examination, the chief minister said that owing to the postponement of the examination, age limit of a section of students – who apprehended that they would not able to appear for the exam as they had crossed the age criteria — would not come in the way of their appearing for the postponed examination as all the students would be allowed to appear for the deferred exam.
The MPSC had earlier in the day attributed its decision to defer the MPSC preliminary examinations-2020 to the increasing spread of Covid-19 in various parts of the state. “We are postponing the MPSC preliminary examination as a precautionary measure taken in view of the spurt in the number of Covid-19 cases in the state,” a statement issued by the MPSC had said.
The MPSC 2020 prelims exams, scheduled to be conducted on March 14, have been postponed for the fifth time in the past one year owing to the Covid-19 crisis.
An estimated 260,000 plus candidates were to appear for the prelims exams for two objective-type papers at various centres in the state on March 14 (Sunday).
The decision to postpone the MPSC preliminary examinations sent the students across the state into tizzy. There were spontaneous protests in various parts of the state, including Pune, Nagpur, Amravati, Aurangabad, Solapur, Nanded, Kolhapur, Jalgaon and some other places.
The affected students resorted to rasta rokos, dhranas and other forms of protests in various parts of the state. The police resorted to mild lathi charge at Amravati.
Soon after the protests erupted in various parts of the state, the chief minister spoke to Director-General of Police Hemant Nagrale and other senior police officials and asked them to deal with the protestors with restraint.
On their part, the leaders of the ruling alliance partner Congress – Nana Patole and Vijay Wadettiwar – also called up the chief minister and urged to come out with a solution for the unrest among the affected students caused by the sudden postponement of the examination.
Slamming the Uddhav Thackeray government for the postponement of the MPSC preliminary examination, leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis said that the repeated postponement of the examinations had badly affected morale of the students who had been preparing for the examination with hard work. He said that the decision had also affected the students financially. “That being the case, I advise the state government to suspend the postponement of examination and hold it as scheduled,” Fadnavis said.
Fadnavis wondered as to why the state government had chosen to defer the MPSC preliminary exams at a time when there was no ban on political rallies and several other public activities. “Given that the social distancing norms are normally enforced at the examination centres, the reason for the postponement given by the MPSC is wrong. Hence the state government should hold the examination as scheduled earlier,” the former chief minister said, while talking to a regional television channel.
