Modi’s Government Drops Hiring Policy After Political Pushback
(Bloomberg) -- The Indian government has withdrawn a policy for hiring senior government officials just days after its announcement following political opposition.
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A notice that was issued by the Union Public Service Commission last week threw open a collection of federal jobs for lateral entry, which refers to people being hired from outside instead of through the regular civil services examination.
The move led to an uproar within the current government’s coalition partners and opposition parties, who objected to throwing open government jobs to candidates without instituting affirmative action.
The policy reversal demonstrates the pressure Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is beginning to experience internally after he failed to secure an absolute majority forcing him to lean on coalition partners. In his previous two terms, Modi was comfortably able to push bold legislations and policies such as the demonetization of currency notes, the removal of Kashmir’s autonomy and the citizenship amendment law with little resistance.
Leader of opposition and Modi’s harshest critic Rahul Gandhi called the lateral entry an attempt by the government to bypass affirmative action within government jobs and opening it up to the private sector.
“I have always said that the underprivileged are not represented in all the top positions in the country, including the top bureaucracy,” Gandhi said in a post on the social media platform X written in Hindi. “Instead of improving this, they are being pushed further away from top positions through lateral entry.”
This latest rollback comes weeks after the government deferred a bill on broadcasting services.
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