Jharkhand Students Protest: The Bharatiya Janata Party in Jharkhand called for a statewide bandh as a protest against the police action on agitators during the assembly march by JPSC and JSSC aspirants in Ranchi on Monday.
Jharkhand BJP president Aditya Sahu alleged that hundreds of protesters were injured in the lathi-charge and use of tear gas and water cannons. He said essential services would remain outside the scope of the bandh.
“It will be a state-wide bandh. All essential services, however, are excluded from the purview of the shutdown,” Sahu told reporters at the BJP headquarters in Ranchi. The announcement came hours after clashes broke out between police and job aspirants near the Jharkhand Assembly. The student protesters have been demanding action over alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC).
What Happened In The Protest
On Monday, student protestors held a march to the Jharkhand Assembly, demanding a thorough investigation into the alleged irregularities in the state recruitment examinations. Several protesters and four police personnel suffered injuries on Monday after the situation turned tense near the Jharkhand Assembly.
Police used water cannons, tear gas shells and lathicharge to disperse the protestors after they allegedly breached multiple barricades put up near the Assembly. The protesting students claimed that several demonstrators, including women, suffered injuries during the police action.
Ranchi City SP Paras Rana, however, said four policemen were injured after demonstrators allegedly resorted to stone pelting. The latest confrontation took place during the ‘Vidhan Sabha Gherao’ march organised by the JPSC-JSSC Reform Manch. The protesters were attempting to move towards the Assembly when police intervened.
What Are The Demands
The protesting students are demanding cancellation of the JSSC-CGL examination, a CBI probe into alleged irregularities and comprehensive reforms in the state’s recruitment system. The students have been staging their agitation in Ranchi for the last 17 days. The issue which started as a small protest in the Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium soon escalated into a nationwide concern, questioning irregularities in the examinations and accountability on the part of the Jharkhand administration.
Student leader Devendra Nath Mahato, who has been on a hunger strike for the past 10 days, joined the protest on a stretcher on Monday. “Our future strategy depends on the government’s decision. I said on day one itself: This voice is not just Devendra Nath Mahato’s. It is the voice of those millions of youths whose futures depend on competitive examinations, those who seek to realise their dreams through books,” Mahato said. He also alleged that the administration had taken several measures to prevent the protesters from advancing their agitation.
The Jharkhand students’ protest comes days after the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janata Party had started an agitation against the alleged irregularities in connection to the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak. The protestors demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Their demands were met on the 50th day of the agitation with Pradhan’s resignation.