Patna: Bihar education minister Ashok Chaudhary has served a show cause notice to Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) chairman Anand Kishore a day after Class 12 humanities topper Ganesh Kumar was arrested for forging documents to conceal his age.
The minister and the exam board have come under fire for the result controversy. Patna Police, on the basis of confessions made by Ganesh, are conducting raids at various places since Saturday morning to nab those who helped him arrange the fake papers.
The latest result fiasco comes a year after the infamous topper scam, in which topper Ruby Rai had failed to answer basic questions related to her subjects.
Ganesh Kumar, who topped Class XII boards in humanities stream, also failed to answer basic questions posed by the media on music, in which he scored 65 out of 70 in practicals. He sung a few lines of a Bollywood song, that too out of tune, to show his knowledge in the subject.
Kumar’s Class 10 result was also withheld because he used forged documents to appear for an exam to hide is actual age. Board officials said that Kumar had shown his age as 24, but his actual age is 42 and he is married and the father of two kids.
The controversy has given ammunition to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to attack the Nitish-led government in the state.
Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi has demanded removal of education minister Ashok Chaudhary from the cabinet, accusing him of failing to check corrupt practices within departments under him and the exam bodies. Ashok Chaudhary is also the president of the state Congress committee.
“Ashok Chaudhary tried to defend Ganesh Kumar and gave him full marks. Even his caste was used to defend the failure of the system. Nitish always talks about Bihari pride. But doesn’t he know that such scams are defaming Bihar. Who is responsible for this?” he asked.
Coalition partner in the state Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) also attacked the education department and said it was a failure of system. But it chose to target BSEB chairman Anand Kishore instead of education minister Ashok Chaudhary.
RJD spokesperson Shakti Yadav blamed BSEB for the failure and demanded removal of Kishore. “People’s faith in the examination system has dipped to the lowest level. Perception is very important. It can only be restored by making some tough decisions,” he said.
Even chief minister Nitish Kumar’s party Janta Dal United, JD (U), accepted that exam fraud in two consecutive years has dented the popularity of his government. JD(U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar accused Anand Kishore of not providing correct information to the government about the facts related to the topper. He lashed out at him for going to media and not informing the government.
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