Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday handed out appointment letters to 25,000 of the 1.2 lakh school teachers recruited by the Bihar Public Service Commission in October. Even as Kumar was giving out the letters at an event in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan, Opposition leaders alleged that the government had deprived Biharis by recruiting thousands of teachers from other states.
At the heart of the controversy is a domicile policy – or the lack of it. The Kumar government had allowed candidates from outside Bihar to take the examinations. But Bihari applicants have held protests, pointing out that Kumar’s deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, had promised when he was in the Opposition to reserve seats for local candidates.
Bihar is not alone in this nativist politics. Across India, several states now have domicile quotas for residents who have been born there or lived there for a long time. Many other states have heard demands for such a policy.
What is the controversy?
A total of 1,20,336 candidates made it to the merit list in the first phase of recruitment of teachers for primary, secondary and higher secondary schools in Bihar in October. Soon after the results were announced, candidates took to social media to criticise the government for recruiting teachers…
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