The fag end of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala Government is witnessing unprecedented agitations by unemployed youth demanding jobs even as various groups have started submitting memorandums to the Governor listing how the State administration subverts rank lists prepared by Public Service Commission and appoints relatives of CPI(M) leaders.
Monday saw the ignominy of two youths, disappointed over the Government ignoring their plea to appoint them though they figure the rank list prepared by the PSC, setting themselves ablaze in front of the State Secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram. Timely intervention by Police and onlookers saved their lives. This is the first time in its history an incident like this is happening in Kerala.
Priju and Praveen were among the youths who have been staging a sit-in in front of the State Secretariat since January 26 demanding they be appointed in Government Service as they figure in the rank list of last grade employees prepared by the PSC. But the Kerala Government has been busy appointing persons who do not figure in the list, demolishing the employment dreams of these youths.
Meanwhile an organisation by name Save University Campaign Committee based at the capital city submitted a memorandum to the Governor of Kerala, who is also the Chancellor of all the Universities in the State, listing instances of impropriety in appointing assistant professors to various universities.
The committee has given a detailed account of how the wife of M B Rajesh, former MP representing the CPI(M), was appointed in Sree Sankara Sanskrit University allegedly violating all norms. “Political consideration looms large all through the preparation of the rank-list for the Asst. Professor appointment in the Malayalam dept so as to appoint first rank holder Ninitha Kanicherry who was only a poor 212th rank holder in an earlier selection process made by the KPSC for appointment of Asst: Professors in the Government Colleges, overlooking highly qualified candidates who got higher position in the PSC rank list over the candidate,” reads the Memorandum, a copy of which is with The Pioneer. PNS
Ninitha Kanicherry is the wife of Rajesh, the CPI(M) leader who is a former MP. The memorandum submitted by R S Sasikumar and M Shajirkhan, chairman and secretary respectively of the SUCC is said to be just one of the many instances of nepotism and favouritism happening in the recruitment of teachers to Sree Sankara Sanskrit University.
“The CPI(M) leaders are distorting and misinterpreting the reforms introduced by the University Grants Commission in 2018 to select quality teachers to the universities in the country. Reforms in selection process brought in by the UGC with good intentions are being subverted by the present authorities in the Higher Education Department of Kerala,” said Sasikumar, former registrar and member of the syndicates of University of Kerala and Cochin University of Science and Technology.
But Rajesh blamed some vested interests in the University for leaking out the details about the selection process and charged that forces inimical to him in the State were out to tarnish his reputation as a young leader.