NEET: Congress fighting for justice, Rahul Gandhi to Stalin

Chennai: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has conveyed to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin that his party is fighting to get justice for students pursuing NEET, the state government said on Sunday.

Writing to Stalin, Gandhi said that he met thousands of students in the past one month who were affected by the 'huge failure,' of the Union government and the National Testing Agency. "Twenty four lakh students should expeditiously get justice," Gandhi was quoted as saying.

The Congress leader wrote to Stalin thanking him for his letter of June 28,2024 over NEET, the government said. Gandhi said, in particular, following the advance declaration of NEET-UG result on June 4, 2024, the Congress party is fighting for justice to students.

The leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said NEET has exposed 'apparent deficiencies' in the higher education structure. It has attracted attention on the impact on students belonging to the marginalised sections.

A government statement said Gandhi, in his letter, referred to his recent address in Parliament over NEET, which underlined the plight of poor students as they could not afford to go to coaching centres and do not have the opportunity of level playing field to compete. "We have the shared responsibility of preventing only some privileged (aspirants) getting opportunity in state-administered medical colleges, run out of tax money." Gandhi praised Tamil Nadu as a pioneering state for its robust public sector medical education infrastructure. As a result, the Congress leader said, the state has a strong public health infrastructure and any effort to weaken it must be deprecated.

Citing irregularities over NEET, on June 28, Stalin also wrote to Chief Ministers of opposition ruled-states including Delhi, Punjab and West Bengal requesting them to pass resolutions in their respect legislative assemblies to urge the Centre to abolish NEET. This was following adoption of a resolution in Tamil Nadu Assembly seeking exemption to the state from NEET.