UPSC aspirants staged a protest outside BJP president Amit Shah's residence to press for their demand for one more attempt to crack the civil services exam, claiming they were affected by abrupt changes in rules between 2011 and 2015.

According to one of the protesters, they sat outside Shah's residence in Lutyens' Delhi around midnight last night.

He said they were 52 in number and lit candles. Police said it was a peaceful protest.

The Arun S. Nigavekar Committee, set up by the commission and the UPSC's own annual report, have highlighted that 'due to CSAT, selection of students from regional languages and from humanities background has declined during 2011-2014', according to one of the protesters.

The CSAT paper was competitive in nature during the 2011-14 period.

'In 2015, UPSC made the CSAT qualifying in nature. Because of these frequent changes in exam pattern and discriminatory nature of CSAT, we lost many precious attempts to appear in the exam during this period. We demand due justice from the government. We are not asking for any job, rather we want a chance to compete,' said one of the protesters.

Students who appeared between 2011 and 2014 demand they be compensated with one more chance as they lost out because of the changes.