Thirty students in Visakhapatnam could not reach their exam centre and failed to take the engineering entrance exam, apparently after being delayed by the convoy of Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan. The upset parents are now voicing their concern about the long-term impact on their children’s academic futures.
Actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan holds the crucial science and technology portfolio.
Students from the Pendurthi AI Digital JE Advanced programme — who were taking the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) which determines admissions to National Institutes of Technology (NITs) — said with the traffic blocked, they had reached their exam center late. All 30 were turned away from the exam hall gates and not allowed to sit for the exam, they said.
B Kalavathi, the mother of a student, claimed that her son was delayed due to traffic restrictions enforced for Pawan Kalyan’s convoy. “We were stuck in traffic. It was halted because Kalyan was on his way to Araku,” Kalavathi was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India.
Another parent said he appealed to the Deputy Chief Minister to consider rescheduling the exam for the affected students.
In a press release, the All India Students’ Federation (AISF) blamed the officials for inefficient traffic management during exam hours. The students had missed the opportunity to write the exam through no fault of their own, it said.
Karthik Yellapragada, the spokesperson of the opposition YSR Congress, said the state “deserves a better science and technology minister”. “The actor-politician, true to his cinematic image, continues to treat public office like a press release event… It is time that we stop clapping to cinematic moments and start demanding real accountability,” he added in a video message.
NDTV has contacted Pawan Kalyan’s office but has received no response.
In a post on X, the city police claimed the students were expected to reach the exam centres by 7 am and had these 30 students been on time, there was no question of their being held up by traffic.
“As per the admit card of the above-mentioned examinations, every candidate has to report at 07:00 am and the gate of the examination centre will be closed at 8:30 am,” read a rough translation of their post.
The Deputy Chief minister, the police said, “passed through the said junction at 8:41 am”.
“Therefore, it is clear that the movement of the Deputy CM through that area at 8:41 AM has nothing to do with the late arrival of the students who were supposed to report at 7 am,” the post read.
Traffic on the BRTS Road and Gopalapatnam-Pendurthi Service Road has not been stopped till 8:30 am to ensure free movement of the candidates to the exam centre, the police said.
“Moreover, since the commencement of these examinations on April 2, if we look at the first shift on each examination day, the number of absent candidates (including latecomers) at the centre was 81, 65, 76 and 61, which means that the number of absent students (including latecomers) is less today,” it added.