The protest by job aspirants outside the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) office in Allahabad continued on the second day on Tuesday.

The agitators refused to heed the district administration’s request to vacate the area around the commission and shift to the dedicated dharna site around 10km from the UPPSC office.

The aspirants have been demanding that the job-related exams be held in one shift instead of multiple shifts spread across two or more days. They are also opposed to the normalisation of marks, which is applied when multiple question papers are prepared.

“It is to be decided by the UPPSC but we have appealed to the protesters to shift to the dharna site so that law and order is maintained properly in the main city area,” said Ravindra Kumar, the district magistrate of Allahabad.

Abhishek Kumar, who came to Allahabad from New Delhi on Tuesday to join the protest, said: “Normalisation is like a lucky draw, a medium to give backdoor entry to the family members of those who are in power....”

UPPSC secretary Ashok Kumar arrived at the commission gate around 10am and told the students: “We don’t have many examination centres. We decided not to make private institutions the centres of competitive exams. As a result, we are holding PCS and revenue officers’ exams in 45 districts only. Obviously we can’t accommodate so many applicants ina single day.”

There are five lakh aspirants for PCS and 11 lakh for the RO exams.

Santosh Chaturvedi, a protester, told reporters: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants one nation, one election. Then why not one examination in one day and one sitting, which used to happen inthe past?”