Hyderabad witnessed heightened political activity on Tuesday, September 16, as members of Telangana Jagruthi staged a protest at the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TGPSC) office in Nampally. Raising slogans against Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, the activists demanded justice for thousands of Group 1 aspirants who were affected by alleged irregularities in the recruitment process. Visuals shared online showed protestors attempting to storm the Commission’s premises, forcing heavy police deployment in and around the office. The agitation comes on the heels of the Telangana High Court’s directive to manually re-evaluate the Group 1 examination papers, a decision that has reignited tensions between the government and job aspirants.
The High Court, in its ruling on September 9, ordered TGPSC to complete a manual reevaluation of the Group 1 exams within two months and warned that failure to do so would result in cancellation of the process and fresh examinations. The controversy traces back to 2024 when the newly formed Revanth Reddy-led Congress government cancelled the earlier Group 1 notification, a move challenged unsuccessfully in the Supreme Court. This year, despite the Commission notifying 563 vacancies, the recruitment process was stalled after petitions alleging irregularities surfaced. Accusations of using non-Telugu evaluators for Telugu medium papers and lack of transparency further fueled unrest, with students repeatedly taking to the streets demanding accountability.
The opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has strongly backed the High Court’s intervention. Party working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) hailed the verdict as long-overdue justice for unemployed youth, accusing the Congress government of ignoring evidence of malpractice and even suppressing protestors with lathi-charges instead of addressing their concerns. He described the judgment as a “slap on the face of the government” and a vindication of the students’ struggle. As the reevaluation process moves forward, the standoff between the state administration, job aspirants, and opposition forces is likely to intensify, keeping the Group 1 exam controversy at the center of Telangana’s political discourse.
