Several candidates from other states who wrote the Bengal teacher-selection exam on Sunday said there were no teaching jobs back home, with many from Uttar Pradesh complaining that the BJP government there was more invested in “mandir-masjid politics” than generating employment.

The School Service Commission (SSC) held the selection test to shortlist candidates for 23,212 teaching posts in government-aided schools. The exam, which seeks to recruit teachers for classes IX and X, went off smoothly, SSC officials said. (See Metro)

Of the 3,19,919 candidates who applied, 2,91,126 took the test.

According to figures provided by the SSC, 31,000 outstation candidates wrote the test. Most of these candidates came from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the officials added. Since the schoolteacher recruitment process in Bengal does not have a policy on domiciles, aspirants from other states can sit forthe exam.

Several candidates who came from outside told The Telegraph they took the exam in Bengal as there were no teaching jobs in their home states. The outstation candidates have mainly applied for teaching positions in geography, Hindi and physical science, the SSC officials said.

Candidates from Uttar Pradesh came from places such as Azamgarh, Varanasi and Allahabad.

Ajeet Kumar Chaudhary from Azamgarh was standing in a queue in front of Jadavpur Vidyapith, a government-aided school that was one of the 636 exam centres.

Chaudhary, 26, has a master’s degree in geography and political science from Azamgarh University and Allahabad University, respectively.

“No teacher-recruitment exams have been held in Uttar Pradesh in the past five years. We do not know when the next recruitment test will be held. The Uttar Pradesh government is so obsessed with mandir-masjid politics that it does not have time to think about development and create jobs. Which is why,despite being a double MA, I did not get to write any teacher-selection test in Uttar Pradesh,” Chaudhary, who aspires to become a geography teacher, said.

“Unemployment forced me to come to Bengal in search of a job. We have to sustain ourselves and feed our families,” he said after stepping out of the exam centre around 1.40pm.

Om Prakash Prajapati from Varanasi, whose exam centre was Jadavpur Vidyapith, said: “I came to write the test in search of employment opportunities. I got to know about the exam here from a newspaper ad.”

Prajapati, 34, wants to be a geography teacher.

Manindra Chandra College in north Calcutta hosted many outstation examinees.

A candidate who came from Allahabad said on the condition of anonymity: “The Yogi Adityanath government (in Uttar Pradesh) has not done anything to generate employment in the past eight years. There are no jobs.”

The candidate continued: “Our parents raise us in the hope that we will get employment. But there are no employment opportunities. Even if exams are held in Uttar Pradesh, the question papers are leaked.”

A Bengal education department official said the number of outstation candidates had surpassed the figure registered in 2016, the last time the teacher-selection test was held. It was less than 15,000 in 2016, a source in the education department said.

“In states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, vacancies for posts of teachers in government schools are very high and no recruitment has been done for several years. Which is why many candidates have come here to write the test,” said a state education department official.

A candidate from Bihar whose exam centre was at Maharaja Manindra Chandra College said: “Since Bengal is offering an employment opportunity, I have come to write the test here.”