The ongoing row over the UPSC issue escalated today with Opposition parties disrupting Parliament demanding a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi even as scores of UPSC aspirants continued their protests pressing for scrapping CSAT.
The Opposition made a strong pitch for setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC) to probe the matter, saying it involved the career of lakhs of students.
They also demanded that the decision taken by the government on the issue be kept in abeyance and the Civil Services Preliminary exams slated for August 24 be postponed.
Protests continued today despite government yielding yesterday and and announcing that English marks in the test will not be included for gradation or merit in the civil services preliminary examination.
The aspirants, who had been protesting against the CSAT format in Mukherjee Nagar of north Delhi for the past 26 days, have now shifted their base to Jantar Mantar.
Protestors said they would continue their fight unless Centre doesn't scrap CSAT completely.
The Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha became a casualty once again as opposition members created an uproar over the issue trooping into the well forcing adjournment of the House for half-an-hour.
The Lok Sabha also saw a brief adjournment of 15 minutes during Zero Hour when SP and RJD members entered the well creating noisy scenes over the issue and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked them to give notice for their demand for a discussion.
Nine opposition parties had given a notice for suspension of Question Hour in Rajya Sabha while demanding a discussion on the issue, but Chairman Hamid Ansari asked them to give proper notice and not raise "extraneous" matters during the Question Hour.
