Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Congress on Friday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "silence" over the NEET exam issue, saying that he "cannot always remain a mute spectator" while demanding a Supreme Court-monitored forensic probe.
Party president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that the Modi government has started "covering up the NEET scam" through Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Referring to the arrest of 13 people in Bihar on charges of NEET paper leak where "education mafia" collected Rs 30-50 lakh each from aspirants and the busting of such a racket in Gujarat, Kharge asked, "What conclusion is drawn from this? Was the Modi government trying to fool the people of the country earlier or now? The Modi government has crushed the aspirations of 24 lakh youth."
Around 24 lakh youth appear in NEET exam to become doctors, and work hard day and night for one lakh medical seats, he said adding, "Out of these one lakh seats, around 55,000 are in government colleges where seats are reserved for SC, ST, OBC, EWS categories. This time the Modi government has misused the NTA and has massively rigged the marks and ranks, due to which the cut-off for reserved seats has also increased."
It appears that a game of grace marks, paper leaks and rigging was played to deprive meritorious students from getting government admission at concessional rates, Kharge alleged.
Congress Media and Publicity Department chairperson Pawan Khera claimed that the "NEET scam is Vyapam 2.0" and the "Modi government wants to whitewash it" but "it cannot run away from accountability".
He demanded that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan should order a Supreme Court-monitored forensic probe into the scam.
"Can the Education Minister deny that a NEET-UG cheating racket has been busted in Gujarat's Godhra involving three people including a person who runs coaching centre, a teacher and one another, wherein the investigation in the case has revealed transaction worth over Rs 12 crore between students, their parents and the accused?" he said.
"Is it not a fact that this year, in 2024, there were 67 toppers who were given a perfect score of 720, while in 2023, the number was just two? Is it not true that this year saw an abnormal increase in the students getting scores above 690? Is it not true that multiple NEET-UG 2024 toppers belong to the same state and have similar roll numbers? Were they from the same examination centres?" he asked.
He said Modi cannot always remain a mute spectator while asking why he is silent when the future of 24 lakh youngsters is at stake.
"The complete result of last year and this year of students scoring 580 plus should be made public by NTA if the Modi government claims that the entire examination process is transparent. The centres of students scoring 580 plus should also be made public to see how many students travelled far off from their place to take the NEET exam," he said.