The State unit of the Samajwadi Party (SP) demanded from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to abolish the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination. A memorandum addressed to the PM in this regard was submitted to all the district collectors of the State on Saturday.
SP Madhya Pradesh president Ashok Yadav in a statement here said, "We have demanded from the prime minister to abolish CSAT and to prepare the basic question paper in Hindi. SP district presidents and leaders of the respective districts have handed over a memorandum addressed to the prime minister to district collectors today."
Yadav further said that we have sought the PM’s immediate intervention in the matter as the current CSAT system is harming the Hindi speaking candidates causing continuous fall in their success rate. Also a demand is made that the main question paper of the UPSC should be prepared in Hindi and than it should get translated in English, he added.
In the State capital, SP workers and leaders handed over the memorandum to Bhopal Collector Nishant Warwade while in Indore former parliamentarian Kalyan Jain led the party workers to submit the memorandum to the collector.
Notably, at the heart of the matter is the change of pattern the UPSC introduced in the Civil Services Preliminary Exam starting 2011. Till 2010, the exam used to have two papers — one on general studies and one on an optional subject where aspirants could choose one of 23 listed subjects. This was changed from 2011 onwards, when the UPSC decided to replace the optional subject paper with a paper that tests the aspirants' aptitude.
The syllabus for this paper, protesting aspirants allege, is heavily tilted in favour of those from the Science or, more specifically, Engineering background and is discriminatory against students from Humanities, particularly those who have studied in Hindi-medium.