Madhya Pradesh releases caste-based Class X, XII results

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is in a spree to woo the voters especially from the Dalit community in the election year, was handed another blow as Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) released matriculation and intermediate results on basis of caste.

On May 14, MPBSE had declared the Class X and XII results on the basis of caste at the Chief Minister’s house in the state capital where Chouhan had even awarded the toppers.

The issue has sparked a controversy in the state. The Opposition party, Congress and its newly appointed chief Kamal Nath, took to Twitter to take a a dig at the government on the issue. Even Chouhan’s school education minister, Deepak Joshi, criticised this move and said such data should not be released in public and demanded action against the wrongdoers.

According to the declared Class X results, of 13,004 students belonging to SC category 6,669 passed, while 13,385 students of ST category out of 75,839; 30,166 OBC students out of 1,41,128 and 84,559 general category students out of 3,16,942 have passed the board exams.

Similarly, in class XII, 58,760 out of 92,669 SC students, 48,239 ST students out of 78,438 and 2,10,929 OBC students out of 3, 03,388 and 86,943 general category students out of 1,25,261 have passed the examination this year.

By posting a copy of the cast-based released result on twitter, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) Kamal Nath twitted that BJP was out to divide the state on caste lines. After writing their categories on the SC/ST candidates in Guna, the state government declared caste based results of class 10th and 12th.

“The declaration of caste-based results in public is wrong and action would be taken against the persons found guilty,” said Deepak Joshi, the minister of State for School Education.

However, Joshi said the government maintained caste-based records of the students to pass on benefits of several programmes including laptop distribution and meritorious student scheme.

Hitting back at Kamal Nath’s tweet, Joshi said, “The allegations levelled by Congress chief Kamal Nath are baseless and BJP has no intention to do so. It may have occurred due a human error.”

When the release of caste-based results became a controversy, the chairman of MPBSE, SR Mohanti, went into damage-control mode. “The caste-based results released by the board was not to divide students but to pass on benefits of the state government welfare schemes. Board categories students from different categories and shortlists them for schemes,” Mohanti stated.

However, this is not the first time that the MP Board has declared caste-based results. The board has been doing it since 2016 but this is the first time the matter was noticed.

The school education minister Joshi was also oblivious of the fact that the board had released caste-based Class X, XII results in 2016 and 2017 too.