Demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation enquiry into the 'non-issuance' of admit cards to hundreds of thousands of candidates for the Railways Group 'D' exams held Sunday, the Bharatiya Janata Party Monday said the prime minister should dismiss Railway Minister Lalu Prasad for causing a fraud on the career of lakhs of youth.
Alleging that only 15 per cent of the nearly five lakh candidates were issued admit cards for Sunday's exam for 8,366 posts of Traffic Porters, Gatemen, Gangmen, Khalasi and others in the Railways, Delhi BJP president Harshvardhan told mediapersons that it was a purposeful exercise to recruit Lalu's favourites.
"How else could just a handful of them be issued cards and the candidature of other lakhs of applicants be rejected without offering a reason," he asked.
The Railways have done a fraud on the lakhs of youth by charging them Rs 40 each per application and then not issuing an admit card even till the exam day eve, he said.
"We came into the scene after thousands of the applicants from all over the country came for redressal of their grievance after they were disallowed to appear in the exam. More so, several Delhi candidates had been given centres as far as Bhubaneshwar, Chennai and Jammu." And above all, some candidates were asked to dish out five rupees extra to 're-apply' at the Lajpat Nagar Raliway board office when they went to lodge a complaint, which was not just ridiculous but unprecedented, Mr Harshvardhan informed.
"How can 85 per cent of applicants be rejected after all." All this does smack of a planned conspiracy to wean away deserving candidates and smoothen the passage for 'favourites', the BJP leader said. "We demand that yesterday's exam be cancelled and candidates who have been not issued admit cards be allowed to reappear for the exam which would also be held on February 26 and March 5."
The PM should dismiss Lalu from the cabinet for the fraud created on the people and an enquiry conducted by the CBI to find out those behind this bungling of money of the aspirants, he added.
Also, the role of Railway Board officials be scrutinised because of which this massive inconvenience was caused to lakhs of candidates, Mr Harshvardhan added.
