Opposition parties, which cornered the Union government in Parliament and on the streets over paper leaks and police lathicharges against protesting students, now face the same reckoning in the States they govern.
In the past few days, near-identical protests have broken out in opposition-ruled Karnataka, Punjab, and Jharkhand—the last the most sustained, having entered its third week.
This has allowed the ruling BJP at the Centre to accuse the opposition of selectivity, and to target the Congress in particular for what it calls a silence on these State-level protests after the party spent weeks demonstrating at Jantar Mantar over the paper leak issue and besieging Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The Jharkhand protest, under way since July 25 over allegations that seats were sold in examinations of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) and the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC), is now the second-longest such protest after the Jantar Mantar agitation against the NEET paper leak, which ended after Pradhan’s resignation on July 25 following weeks of demonstrations, including a 26-day fast by the activist Sonam Wangchuk.
The Hemant Soren government has ordered a Crime Investigation Department (CID) probe and, as of August 6, arrested 19 people in the alleged recruitment scam. The allegations surfaced after the results of the 14th JPSC Combined Civil Services preliminary examination were declared on July 5. The police have also carried out raids at multiple locations, including in the State capital.
The government has offered the protesting students talks with the Chief Minister, but they are pressing for cancellation of the examination and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry. They have since scaled up the demand, asking that any probe be headed by an independent panel of retired judges from outside Jharkhand.
Devendra Nath Mahto, the student leader spearheading the hunger strike, has been fasting since August 2 and took water on the fourth day at the urging of Wangchuk. On August 7 and 8, representatives of the protesting students held talks with the government; both sides failed to reach an agreement, and the protest continued on Saturday, its 16th day, amid plans for a march to the Assembly on Sunday, August 9.
Talks, and a video appeal
On Friday, a ten-member student delegation met the Jharkhand Ministers Chamra Linda, Deepika Pandey Singh, Sudivya Kumar, and Sanjay Singh in the first round of talks, which lasted around two hours at the State guest house in Morabadi, Ranchi.
The same day, Chief Minister Hemant Soren issued a video statement: “I have said before that I and our government are committed to moving forward with concrete and practical solutions to the problems faced by students and youth across the entire country, including Jharkhand. Along with my young colleagues in Ranchi, the suggestions from youth and students living in various districts of the State are equally important. Therefore, the government will gather opinions and suggestions from students in all districts, so that the solutions are comprehensive and inclusive. We will soon collect suggestions from students, academics, and policymakers across the State and the country, and take concrete steps in a time-bound manner towards necessary reforms and positive changes.”
Protesters receive medical attention during an indefinite hunger strike against the Jharkhand government over alleged irregularities in government recruitment tests, in Ranchi, Jharkhand, on August 8, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
The State government has released a dedicated email address to collect suggestions from students and other stakeholders on policy reforms.
Jharkhand BJP chief Babulal Marandi has sought to draw Hemant Soren himself into the controversy, alleging that admit cards for the JSSC-CGL exam were found, during an Enforcement Directorate raid, at the premises of a close friend of the Chief Minister.
“How did JSSC-CGL admit cards reach a private premises? If the recruitment process was transparent, why is the government shying away from an independent CBI investigation into these serious allegations?” he asked.
The same day, activists of the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) protested outside the Chief Minister’s residence and attempted to break the barricades.
A leaderless movement, or many leaders
The Ranchi protest is fronted by Mahto, a postgraduate of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University (DSPMU) in Ranchi who contested the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly election from the Tamar seat as an Independent candidate. He has been active in student politics since 2015 on issues including scholarships, examination irregularities, and reservation.
The agitation has also drawn support from the Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM), the party founded in 2023 by the youth leader Jairam Kumar Mahato, who won the Dumri Assembly seat in the 2024 election, defeating the sitting Minister Baby Devi of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) by a margin of nearly 11,000 votes. Jairam Mahato had contested two seats that year; he ran second in Bermo, losing to the Congress candidate.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Jairam Mahato, then contesting on his own before JLKM’s formal registration, polled close to 3.5 lakh votes from the Giridih constituency; his supporters also polled well in Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, and Ranchi. In the Assembly election that followed, JLKM won the Dumri seat and finished second or third in numerous others, cutting into the anti-JMM vote in ways that affected the BJP-led alliance’s tally on several seats.
There are also signs of divergent leaderships within the Ranchi protest, with two separate stages at the same site advancing differing demands—one group seeking only the cancellation of the 14th JPSC preliminary examination and a CBI probe, the other also demanding the resignation of Jharkhand Higher Education Minister Sudivya Kumar. Some protesters have alleged that a Jharkhand government employee, Abhay Tiwari, is among those behind the alleged scam.
All India Students’ Association national president Neha Bora after a man threw ink on her during a protest against alleged examination irregularities by the JPSC and JSSC at Jaipal Singh Stadium, in Ranchi, on August 7, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
Somnath Sen/ANI
Alongside JLKM supporters, the protest has drawn the CPI(ML) Liberation-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA). On August 7, AISA’s national president, Neha Bora, said she was attacked with ink and identified the assailant as a RSS member pursuing a degree in Ranchi, alleging the attack was retaliation for her earlier participation in the Jantar Mantar protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).
On August 5, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke announced support for the Ranchi sit-in and said the organisation would send representatives to express solidarity.
A protest resisting easy alignment
Jharkhand is governed by a JMM-led alliance that includes the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
Even so, the protest has resisted straightforward political alignment. Demonstrators have carried photographs of B.R. Ambedkar as well as of Shibu Soren, the JMM’s founder and Hemant Soren’s father; the Congress has sent food to the protesters even as the BJP’s Marandi, a former Jharkhand Chief Minister, has extended his support to the students. The Congress’ student wing, the National Students’ Union of India, met the protesters through its national president, Vinod Jakhar, while the ABVP held its own separate march.
Placards at the site urge that the protest “not be politicised” and describe it as being about “changing the system”. Unlike the Jantar Mantar protest, dominated by demonstrators under 20, most of the Ranchi protesters are older than 25—a reflection, organisers say, of the fact that this agitation concerns irregularities in recruitment examinations for government jobs rather than an entrance test taken mainly by teenagers.
Mahto’s decision to protest alongside a portrait of Shibu Soren—credited by many with the creation of the State—and his contention that examination irregularities have troubled Jharkhand’s youth for 26 years, signal an attempt to keep the protest from being pinned on any single government. Jharkhand has been governed by the JMM-led alliance for 13 of the 26 years since it was carved out of Bihar in 2000.
Babulal Marandi was the State’s first Chief Minister; Arjun Munda served three incomplete terms; and Raghubar Das completed a full five-year term until 2019, when Hemant Soren succeeded him.
Congress treads carefully
Whether by design or otherwise, the Congress appears keen to avoid the protest turning into an anti-opposition event. Jharkhand Congress Working President Bandhu Tirkey sent breakfast packets to the protesters on August 3.
As the political stakes rose, the All India Congress Committee’s Jharkhand in-charge, K. Raju, led a delegation of party leaders to meet Hemant Soren on August 6 and submitted a memorandum seeking redress of the students’ grievances.
Congress-JMM relations have been strained twice since the alliance government returned to power in 2024—first during the Bihar Assembly election in 2025, when the JMM accused the Congress and the RJD of ignoring its seat-sharing demands and withdrew from campaigning there, and again during the Rajya Sabha election in Jharkhand in July, when the Congress named a candidate without consulting the JMM.
The strain recalls the friction between the DMK and the Congress ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly election, after which the Congress allied with the newer Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. Jharkhand has not reached a similar pass; the Congress is unlikely to consider a tie-up with Jairam Mahato’s JLKM at the JMM’s expense. But it is equally wary of appearing indifferent while students protest against the government it is part of.
After meeting Soren, Raju posted on X that the Congress in Jharkhand “stands in support of the agitating students for justice”. His delegation included representatives of the Congress’s youth and student wings, the Indian Youth Congress and the NSUI. While thanking the Chief Minister for constituting a ministerial committee to consult the protesting students, Raju said “justice for our students remains our top priority.”
The BJP presses its advantage
The BJP, still smarting from the Jantar Mantar protest that led to Pradhan’s resignation—the first such resignation of a Union Minister under public pressure in the Narendra Modi government’s 12 years in office—has turned the Jharkhand protest against the opposition, asking why Rahul Gandhi has stayed quiet and why the CJP has not mobilised in the tribal State.
While Raju was meeting the Chief Minister, Marandi led a protest with National Democratic Alliance (NDA) legislators outside the Jharkhand Assembly demanding a fair CBI investigation into “the selling of seats in JPSC and JSSC exams”, and visited the protest site to assure the students of his support.
Hemant Soren said the government would do whatever was required for the State’s youth within the framework of the Constitution and the law.
| Photo Credit:
CMO Jharkhand/PTI
On August 4, the first death anniversary of Shibu Soren, referred to widely as “Dishom Guru” (leader of the land), Hemant Soren said the government would do whatever was required for the State’s youth within the framework of the Constitution and the law.
Marandi, however, threatened to keep up the protest “from the House to the streets” until the government agreed to a CBI investigation.
The issue is set to intensify further with the Monsoon session of the Jharkhand Assembly under way. With students planning to gherao the Assembly, the administration has imposed prohibitory orders in the area each day from morning to evening until August 12.
Speaking in the Assembly on August 6, Marandi, the Leader of the Opposition, said the BJP had “always fought to ensure justice for students”, citing the party’s demand for a CBI investigation into the JSSC-CGL matter as far back as the winter session of December 2024. “Now, the entire country is demanding a CBI probe against the selling of seats in the JPSC and JSSC exams to deliver justice to Jharkhand’s students and is supporting the students’ movement,” he said.
On August 5, Marandi had shared images of a march by students in heavy rain, saying it showed that “Jharkhand’s youth is now ready to wage a decisive battle” against rigging in the examinations. “The JMM-Congress government cannot escape accountability. The BJP will not tolerate any injustice to the students,” he said.
A State primed for such a protest
Jharkhand has conducted civil services examinations only 14 times in the 26 years since it came into being, and cancellations and irregularities have been closer to the norm than the exception. The State has high unemployment and significant outward migration, and has often figured in reports on child trafficking. Persistent poverty and corruption in its administration have made it, in effect, primed for a protest of this scale.
Jharkhand is not the only opposition-ruled State where students have taken to the streets over examination irregularities.
In AAP-ruled Punjab, the ABVP marched towards the Vidhan Sabha on August 5 to protest a pharmacy examination paper leak, demanding the resignation of Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains. Youth Congress activists held a separate march towards the Chief Minister’s residence; the Chandigarh police used water cannon to disperse the crowd and detained several demonstrators who tried to cross the barricades.
BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya condemned the police response, saying, “A paper leak is an assault on the future of honest students. Those responsible must be identified and punished, and the integrity of the examination system must be restored.” He also challenged Arvind Kejriwal to have the CJP launch a protest in Punjab and demand the Education Minister’s resignation—part of the BJP’s recurring charge that the CJP functions as AAP’s proxy.
In Congress-ruled Karnataka, students protested during the police constable recruitment examination in Vijayapura district earlier this month, with many walking out of examination centres over alleged irregularities in the distribution of question papers and Optical Mark Recognition sheets. The ABVP organised a protest in Hubballi seeking a CBI investigation into what it called the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) “scam”.
Whatever view one takes of the politics around these protests, they point to a common, and genuine, problem: recruitment agencies across several States running into repeated controversy.
The Congress, which found fresh momentum after the Jantar Mantar protest, will now have to match that posture in the States it governs directly or as a junior partner in coalition—much as the AAP, prominent during the Delhi protests, faces the same test in Punjab. The BJP, for its part, has seen large student protests in States it rules, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan, and can claim no particular moral high ground either.
For student groups protesting genuine grievances, the challenge that remains is keeping their movement from being absorbed into any single party’s politics.
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