Due to absence of traffic, barricades at different points, late running of trains and presence of large number of people on the roads many candidates, especially girls, had a harrowing time. While the first sitting started from 10 AM the second started from 2:00 PM.

Examinees who had their Centres at B N College, Bankipore Girls High School, Science College, A N College, Patna Muslim High School or other places in the vicinity of Gandhi Maidan had to face much more trouble.


They were furious over the manner in which the Rally was organized without taking into consideration that the date was clashing with the all-India exam, whose schedule was announced long back.

For example, Nishant Singh from Danapur, whose examination centre was at Science College, was an upset man on Sunday as he could not reach Patna Science College though he left his home as early as 7:30 AM. He was diverted at many points and all the requests to police about examination fell on deaf ears. He had to even leave his bike on roadside to walk six kilometres from the I-T roundabout to reach the centre, but in the end he was half-an-hour late and not allowed to enter. “The rally deprived me of a chance of getting a job. What is the use of such a rally?” he asked angrily.

For Satish Kumar, the physically challenged candidate from Masaurhi in Patna sub-division, the story was much more tragic. In spite of all the efforts he could reach exam centre at Bankipore Girls High School 20 minutes too late and that too after walking 2.5 km. Son of a private teacher Satish was not allowed to take the exam which he was quite confident of clearing. All this happened when he reached Patna railway station from Masaurhi at 8:30 in the morning.

It took Shruti Kumari more than two hours to reach B N College from Mainpura, which was actually three kilometres away. In normal time just 10-minute ride from her home was enough.

Though Archana Kumari left her home in Raja Bazar at 8 AM she reached B N College five minutes late. However, after much request she was allowed to enter the exam hall. She had to walk quite a long to reach the centre.

Some of the candidates from outside reached Patna a day earlier on Saturday as they anticipated the problem in advance. Many of them had to spend their night at railway station or on the streets outside the exam centres as all the hotels were booked by the JD(U) leaders and activists.

In all 590 out of 990 candidates were reported absent from the A N College centre. Incidentally, most of them were girls. Seventy-three out of 288 were absent from Government Women’s College, Gulzarbagh, 107 out of 420 from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bailey Road and 193 out of 1,000 from B N College. Even P K Poddar, principal of the College, find it very difficult to reach on scooter. In B S College, Danapur, 233 out of 864 could not make it. At Bankipore Girls’ High School, only 260 examinees took the test instead of the 432. Since this was among the closest to the rally venue more than half of them could not turn up.