THE PROTESTS linked to the results of the Railway Recruitment Board-NTPC examination began with 400 students gathering at Rajendra Nagar Railway Station in Patna on January 24 and stalling railway traffic for close to five hours. Patna District Magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh said that day that it was a protest without any leader.
In a matter of three days, the “spontaneous” protests spread to 12 districts across Bihar, leading to a statewide bandh call by the students for Friday. The main RJD-led Grand Alliance on Thursday said they will support the bandh call.
Describing the “spontaneity” of the protests against the exam results, in which 15,048 candidates could qualify against the expected 28,000 as per the old format, a student said, “One should never forget that what was known as Bihar Movement, later JP Movement, started with 30-odd students and turned into a big movement once it reached near Bihar legislature.”
“No government should underestimate the powers of students,” said the student, who is among those who failed to qualify in the examinations.
On January 25, a day after the protest in Patna, similar protests were reported in Ara, Nawada and Muzaffarpur. While students allegedly torched a coach of a stationary and empty train at a railway station in Ara, protesters tried to disrupt railway traffic by targeting the tracks in Nawada. They also engaged in pelting police with stones. In Muzaffarpur, a similar protest was witnessed.
The pattern of the protest was uniform – targeting railways by disrupting train movement and damaging its property.
Following this, the Railway Recruitment Board, which announced setting up a committee to address the students’ grievances, pointed at the involvement of the students’ wing of the Congress party in the protests.
The DIG-cum-Chief Safety Commissioner, RPF, Eastern Railway, Kolkata in his January 25 letter to the Divisional Railway Manager, Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol and Malda, said: “Input indicates that a section of RRB NTPC candidates have given a call for ‘Rail Roko’ at various railway stations throughout the country on 26-01-2022 demanding publication of revised NTPC exam results. The National Students Union of India (NSUI) has extended its support to the ‘Rail Roko’ call. Inputs further indicate that activists of Indian National Congress may also support the movement.”
Bihar Congress spokesperson Kuntal Krishna told The Indian Express: “We are fully supporting the students’ movement from pavement to Parliament. The central government remains apathetic and insensitive. In fact, the central government has been trying to weaken the movement by fomenting trouble by sending its agents in the protests.”
On January 26, students responded to the Rail Roko call by holding protests in Jehanabad, Gaya, Sitamarhi, Motihari, Buxar, Sasaram, Bhagalpur and other places. In Gaya and Jehanabad, protesters pelted the police with stones, and in Gaya, they torched four coaches of an empty train.