After Sunny Leone, Malayalam actress Anupama ‘clears’ exams in Bihar

A male candidate who took the State Teacher Eligibility Test (STET) in Bihar has received his result sheet – with a picture of Malayalam actor Anupama Parameswaran on it.

Rishikesh Kumar, son of Ripusudan Prasad, attended the STET 2019 exam last year. The results were declared this March, but marks in Rishikesh’s subjects – Urdu, Sanskrit and Science – were not uploaded due to some technical issues. On Tuesday Rishikesh finally received the result sheet – only to find Anupama’s photograph on it.

This is not the first time an actor’s name has cropped up in connection with examinations in Bihar. In 2019 Bollywood star and former adult actor Sunny Leone ‘topped’ the merit list released by the state Public Health Engineering Department for the post of junior engineers. The department later rectified the mistake.

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After a photograph of Rishikesh’s result sheet went viral on social media, other candidates alleged large-scale malpractices in the conduct of the examination.

Politicians, including Tejashwi Yadav, the leader of opposition leaders, also questioned the administration and targeted the state government. “After Sunny Leone topped the junior engineer examination, Malayalam actress Anupama Parameswaran passed the STET examination. Nitish-ji [Chief Minister Nitish Kumar] is involved in examination and recruitment scams and destroying the future of youths in the state,” Yadav said.

“He takes a decade to complete the recruitment process of one job and it happens with scam and irregularities.”

Responding to Yadav, ruling Janata Dal (United) leader Ghulam Gaus said: “The mistake will be rectified and we are trying our best to provide employment to a large number of people in the state.”

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The Bihar School Examination Board conducted STET 2019 online last September. Results in 12 subjects were published on March 12, followed by results in three other subjects on June 21.

As per the education department, 24,599 candidates qualified for 30,337 vacant seats in 12 subjects while 6,077 candidates qualified for 7,110 vacant seats for Urdu, Sanskrit and Science.

However, candidates claim that around 35 per cent of examinees who were declared to have passed were not included in the published merit list.