TGPSC Group II paper kicks up storm with its political bias and focus on Naidu, TDP

The paper, many aspirants have alleged, was aimed at tarnishing the previous BRS government and more perplexingly, focus more on former Andhra Pradesh Chief Ministers NT Rama Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu and the Telugu Desam Party, when the entire paper was actually supposed to be on the Telangana Statehood movement

Khammam: The Telangana Public Service Commission’s Group II examination question paper on Monday is kicking up a storm with several questions in the paper apparently having political connotations.

The paper, many aspirants have alleged, was aimed at tarnishing the previous BRS government and more perplexingly, focus more on former Andhra Pradesh Chief Ministers NT Rama Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu and the Telugu Desam Party, when the entire paper was actually supposed to be on the Telangana Statehood movement.

The fourth question paper on ‘Telangana movement and State formation’, consisted of several questions that are apparently aimed to show the previous BRS regime in bad light.

For instance, there were some questions on Page 19 asking candidates to pick multiple choices on whether they were correct or not. Starting with “Consider the following statements with regard to Telugu identity”, it goes to state ‘The statue of Telugu Thalli was installed near the State Secretariat’ asking the candidate to select the correct statements. Another one in the same section was – ‘The government ignored Telangana poets and writers deliberately’ – a common and unfounded allegation made against the BRS by the Congress.

It did not stop there. Some questions try to highlight the TDP, its founder NT Rama Rao and Chandrababu Naidu as well. A few questions given on the same page go like this: ‘Telugu pride and Telugu Unity were popularized by Telugu Desam Party in 1983 election to capture power’ and ‘In the State Assembly elections, Telugu Desam Party moved close to the Other Backward Castes (OBC) and younger sections of the people’.

Further, the candidates are asked to answer which international agency prepared the Vision-2020 document on governance when Chandrababu Naidu was the Chief Minister.

Then comes this: When Chandrababu Naidu was the Chief Minister, he adopted Adilabad district and developed irrigation projects. There was only one question related to Chandrashekhar Rao’s Statehood struggle and his efforts to put pressure on the Centre for the formation of Telangana.

The nature of the questions and deliberate attempt to ignore the statehood movement as well as the initiatives taken by the first Telangana government surprised the candidates who took the exam.

Speaking to Telangana Today, a candidate on the condition of anonymity said the question paper was probably set by someone from Andhra Pradesh and not from Telangana.

“It is a confusing and bad trend to ask such questions to target political opponents,” he added.

Telangana activist Bathula Srinivas, speaking to Telangana Today, said Revanth Reddy might have tried to impress his Andhra friends and cherish his connection with the TDP.

“How can TGPSC set questions that are not related to the Statehood movement when the question paper is about the movement?” he asked.