Kerala paper leak: Chennithala demands resignation of Education Minister

Thiruvananthapuram: Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly Ramesh Chennithala today staged a 'satyagraha' in front of the Secretariat here demanding the resignation of Education Minister C Raveendranath over alleged leak of SSLC and XII board exam question papers.

Raveendranath should quit owning moral responsibility for the leak, he said.

Chennithala also demanded a judicial probe into 'lapses' in setting the question papers and their leak. The agitation was inaugurated by interim Kerala PCC President M M Hassan.

The Congress-led UDF also organised protest marches on the question paper issue in all district headquarters in the state.

In a letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Chennithala said there were also complaints of mistakes or questions being out of syllabus in the papers of geography, Hindi and journalism.

Instead of following the practice of question papers being set by teachers through State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT), the government had sought a list of teachers from Kerala School Teachers Association, a service organisation affiliated to CPI-M, he alleged.

"Teachers of KSTA have close connections with private tuition centres," he said adding many of the questions in the model papers prepared for the exams in such centres appeared in SSLC question papers."

The government had cancelled the SSLC Mathematics examination held last week and decided to conduct a re-examination on March 30.

Following a departmental probe, the government had suspended two teachers who were responsible for setting question papers for SSLC.

The pro-Congress Kerala Students Union (KSU) had staged a protest last week over the issue.