‘CM will have to resign if…’: Jharkhand protesters announce march to Soren residence

As the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Junior Services Selection and Promotion Council (JPSC-JSSC) students' protest entered its 19th day, demonstrators declared a shift in their strategy. On Sunday, they issued a deadline to the Jharkhand government and threatened to march to the Chief Minister's home if their demands were not met.

For the first time, the students officially announced that they would demand the Chief Minister's resignation if the government fails to address their concerns. They also planned to burn effigies of Soren, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other leaders related to the ruling alliance in all 24 districts of Jharkhand that evening.

The announcement marked a significant change in the student's movement, which had grown more intense after the August 10 march to the Jharkhand Assembly. During that protest, students clashed with police, who used water cannons, tear gas, and lathis to disperse the crowd. Piyush Singh, a spokesperson for the JPSC-JSSC Reform Manch, outlined four main demands: cancellation of the JSSC-CGL exam, cancellation of the 11th to 13th JPSC exams, cancellation of all exams conducted by or linked to TDPL (the testing agency), and involvement of the CBI in ongoing investigations.

When the government announced the cancellation of three JPSC-linked examinations, a minister stated that the CGL exam results could not be scrapped because the process had been monitored by the Supreme Court and High Court. Singh emphasized that if the government did not fulfill the students' demands by August 20, they would march to the Chief Minister's residence and demanded, "Resignation for the Chief Minister."

The students described the ultimatum as a warning to the government and invoked the slogan, "Those who stole the jobs will have to leave their chair."

Another student leader, Ravindra Paswan, explained that the protesters were changing the framework of their movement. They stated that the time had come to move beyond the Gandhian movement and become "Bhagat Singh." Paswan stressed that if the government did not address their demands, the group would take a "bullet" to make their point.

The next phase of the agitation would focus on increasing pressure on the government to meet their requirements. Responding to the students' ultimatum, a spokesperson for the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party, Manoj Pandey, stated that the government had been taking the issue seriously since the protest began. He claimed that the government had been investigating the situation from the outset and had never taken the matter lightly.

Pandey also accused those using the students' movement to target the JMM-led government in the state, questioning the involvement of coaching operators and teachers in the protest.