Failed G-II candidates to protest Tuesday

HYDERABAD:  Hundreds of candidates, who failed to clear the Group-II written test, are planning to stage a demonstration before the office of AP Public Service Commission here on Tuesday to seek clarification whether it qualified some candidates who used a whitener to correct their wrong answers.There also others who said they were disqualified even though they provided correct answers, of course after erasing the wrong answers which they had given first and erasing them with a whitener.This category of candidates also are planning to descend on the APPSC office on Tuesday to seek a clarification. The candidates plan to stage a protest in case officials refuse to clarify.A case pending before the AP Administrative Tribunal over the use of a whitener in examinations, will come up for hearing on Tuesday.The APPSC has, for the first time, introduced bubbling of answers on the OMR sheet with a ballpoint pen instead of pencil to leave no scope for irregularities.But some candidates, who thought they had given some wrong answers, requested the invigilators to allow them erase the marking with a whitener and bubble the circles, which they thought were right, once again.K Giribabu, who failed to clear the written test, said the APPSC had said in a statement before the examination that it was introducing the use of either a black or blue ink ballpoint pen in place of pencil to bubble the options so that there could be no scope for changing the answers, for a marking made with a pencil is easily erasable whereas that done with a pen is not.“If APPSC allowed the candidates to correct their mistakes, there was also a possibility of manipulation of results,’’ he said and demanded that the APPSC clarify whether it qualified these candidates or not. “If they have qualified them, where is the meaning of transparency?” he asked.