NEET row: Opposition parties taste blood after NTA chief sacked; demand resignation of Pradhan

Referring to exams being 'postponed indefinitely', the CPI(M) Polit Bureau's statement stated the current state of affairs was not merely the result of corruption but of 'centralisation, commercialisation and communalisation' in the education sphere.

New Delhi: A day after the government sacked National Testing Agency chief Subodh Kumar Singh over the ongoing NEET fiasco, the Opposition on Sunday hit out at the Modi government with the Congress saying the buck stops at the doorsteps of the top echelons of the Modi dispensation and the CPI(M) demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the “belated whitewashing exercise is of no consequence” as countless youth “continue to suffer”, as “paper leaks, corruption, irregularities and education mafia has infiltrated” the education system.

“In the NEET Scam, the buck stops at the doorstep of the top echelons of the Modi government. Shuffling the bureaucrats is no solution to the endemic problem in the Education system rotted by the BJP. NTA was projected to be an autonomous body, but in reality was made to serve the devious interests of the BJP/RSS,” he posted on ‘X’.

For students to get justice, the Modi government must be held accountable, he said, adding that four examinations have been either cancelled or postponed in the past 10 days.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi posted on 'X' that the postponement of NEET-PG was “another unfortunate example of the ruined education system” under Modi's rule.

He claimed that Modi’s “incompetent” government is the “biggest threat” to the future of students and one must save the future of the country from it.

In a statement, CPI(M) Polit Bureau said “sinister developments” have engulfed the centralised all-India examination processes while demanding Pradhan’s resignation.

Referring to exams being “postponed indefinitely in anticipation of what obviously was waiting to happen”, it said it is not merely the result of corruption but of “centralisation, commercialisation and communalisation” in the education sphere, which is an essential ingredient of the National Education Policy.

“The new government summoning the services of the CBI to investigate these scams confirms its approach to whitewash, like it did with the Vyapam scam,” it said.

“These reflect the complete collapse of the policy prescriptions in higher education for which the entire government is accountable, particularly the HRD Minister. He must resign,” it said.

The CPI(M) demanded that in a country as big and as diverse as India, the centralisation of governance of higher education should be reversed and the first step should be to scrap the centralised NEET exams. Every state should be allowed their own separate procedures for conducting admission tests to regulate entry into professional educational institutions, it added.