Andhra Pradesh HRD minister Nara Lokesh has refuted allegations of irregularities in a mega teacher recruitment for government schools last year, levelled by Jagan Mohan Reddy, chief of the Opposition Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP). Lokesh has dared Jagan Reddy to an open debate, even asking the former chief minister to fix a date and time of his choice.
The YSRCP, in the wake of the Gen Z protests over NEET (national medical entrance), has stepped up its campaign on the teacher recruitment issue. The party is demanding that Lokesh step down as minister and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conduct a probe.
The YSRCP’s allegations pertain to the Mega DSC (District Selection Committee) recruitment process undertaken by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-led government, beginning in June 2025 with an online exam, for 16,347 teaching posts in government schools. The process involved a highly competitive computer-based test (CBT) for which 336,300 candidates appeared across 154 examination centres. Jagan Reddy has claimed that the entire process was marred by irregularities.
Lokesh ridiculed the demand for both his resignation and CBI probe. Addressing TDP workers at Adoni in Kurnool district recently, he said: “DSC is synonymous with the TDP, and the TDP with DSC. Our party has a grand history of having recruited 200,000 teachers. Despite facing 250-odd litigations within 150 days, we successfully filled 16,000 posts of teachers.”
Claiming that the previous YSRCP government did not appoint even one teacher in five years, Lokesh, at another meeting near Vijayawada, said that his government had conducted the Mega DSC recruitment most transparently. “Yet Jagan Reddy’s party is slinging mud on us,” he remarked.
The YSRCP has been raking up the DSC recruitment for some time now. Besides moving the Andhra Pradesh High Court with various petitions, including one for a CBI probe, the party is giving a renewed statewide push to the campaign. Student and youth wings of the YSRCP held demonstrations at district headquarters around the state on July 28.
Jagan Reddy pitched these protests as “the growing public demand for justice” and frustration among Gen Z and unemployed youth. The party’s Lok Sabha MP Maddila Gurumoorthy raised the allegations of irregularities during the debate in Parliament on the new bill for examination reforms—the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026.
But senior HRD officials from Andhra Pradesh contested Jagan Reddy’s allegations. Kona Sasidhar, secretary, school education, told INDIA TODAY that to ensure comparability of scores, the DSC 2025 examination was held over 24 days—in multiple shifts where necessary—using the scientific normalisation methodology, the same as done for DSC examinations last held in 2018.
Sasidhar emphasised that every phase of Mega DSC—notification, setting of question paper, examination, declaration of scores, verification of certificates, reservation implementation, final selection and appointments—was conducted transparently, fairly and strictly in accordance with the notified rules, government orders and legal provisions.
YSRCP MPs, though, allege that the state government had violated norms by sidelining the DSC convenor and entrusting the conduct of the examination to the director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
The YSRCP alsoalleged that confidential work, including preparation and uploading of question paper, was handed over to outsourced employees, creating conditions for a paper leak. They also questioned how an outsourced SCERT worker had allegedly secured a top rank in the DSC.
Andhra Pradesh officials countered that both the DSC convenor and SCERT director operate from the same office of the commissioner, School Education Department, and work under the direct supervision of the commissioner. They added that the modification in DSC 2025 was done to avoid various practical and administrative difficulties faced earlier.
Sasidhar said claims of an outsourced employee—a data entry operator at SCERT—allegedly scoring top marks was devoid of merit as the individual was neither involved in nor entrusted with any responsibility relating to DSC. The matter was sub-judice, he added.
YSRCP MPs further allege that the state government had manipulated sports quota rules to enable irregular appointments, and that national-level sports medal winners were ignored while candidates who had merely participated in events got jobs.
Officials, however, stated that 421 posts were earmarked for meritorious sportspersons under the 3 per cent sports quota, and the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh had issued a separate notification on May 2, 2025 for this, distinct from the general CBT-based recruitment.
“The exemption of meritorious sportspersons from a competitive written examination, in favour of certificate-based recognition of sporting achievement under G.O.Ms.No.47 read with G.O.Ms.No.04, was intended to give due weightage to sporting merit, consistent with the objective of strengthening sports and physical education in schools,” the school education department stated in a note, shared with INDIA TODAY.
Officials pointed out that selection under the sports quota was not based solely upon the sports achievement claimed by a candidate but also the combined application of sports priority, preference of post exercised by the candidate, availability of vacancies, communal reservation, horizontal reservation, local reservation, roster points and other applicable recruitment rules.
On the allegation of several call-letter recipients, invited on 1:1 ratio, who cleared certificate verifications not finding their names in the final selection list, Thameem Ansariya, director, school education, attributedthe exclusion to implementation of the new horizontal reservation policy adjustments(reservation for women, sportspersons, persons with disabilities, ex-servicemen quota within reserved seats for SC, ST, OBC) in DSC 2025.
The allegation of money being demanded for a sports quota teaching post by an individual is being probed by the police, the school education department note stated.
The YSRCP plans to keep the issue on the boil for the coming weeks.
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