The Congress will refund the examination fees of millions of youth of Madhya Pradesh who had appeared for various recruitment tests held by Vyapam, the state's professional examination board, in the last 10 years.
In Madhya Pradesh, the recruitment to medical, engineering and other professional courses is conducted by the government's Professional Examination Board that is often referred to by its Hindi acronym—Vyapam.
Some 49 lakh candidates appeared in 59 examinations of Vyapam during the period when a scam came to light in 2013.
Former Union minister and state Congress president Kamal Nath said that a whole generation of youth had been affected in Madhya Pradesh due to the Vyapam examination scam, which saw fudging of results. The Congress, in an election year, wants to make Vyapam a poll issue and wants to target the youth of the state, who account for nearly 55 per cent of the total electorate.
In 2015, the BJP government in the state agreed to a CBI inquiry after the names of top politicians including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister Uma Bharti, former state higher education minister Laxmikant Sharma, Governor Ramnaresh Yadav and several RSS functionaries came up in connection with the Vyapam scam.
Since then, over 3,000 accused, including Sharma and other kingpins, have been arrested. The CBI has registered over 55 FIRs and 20 specially designated courts were created by the High Court for trials in the Vyapam scam. However, judgement in none of the cases has been pronounced.
Established in 1982 for conducting exams to engineering colleges and government medical colleges, Vyapam in 2008 started organising examinations for recruitment to posts such as teachers, police constables, sub-inspectors, forest guards, jail guards and food inspectors as well as vacancies in the excise department and dairy federation.
After the Vyapam scam came to light, it was learnt that all recruitment examinations had seen fudging of results and those who paid hefty bribes cleared examinations at the cost of meritorious students.