Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge came down heavily on the Centre over the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam NEET, and asked why the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government isn’t conducting a retest?

Kharge warned that “no matter how hard the BJP tries, it can’t come clean in rigging, corruption and promotion of education mafia in the NEET scam”.

After the Centre on Friday notified a stringent law, which was passed in February, to prevent paper leaks and cheating, the Congress chief said that “bringing a new law is just a whitewash by the BJP”.

“Unless the education system and autonomous institutions are freed from the interference of BJP-RSS, this rigging, theft and corruption will continue,” the senior Congress leader said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Kharge also presented three facts and asked three questions “which Modi government will have to answer!”

His post said:

Fact 1: The law against paper leaks was not notified, when the Education Minister was asked about it in the press conference, he said that this law has been notified. This law got the assent of the President on February 13, 2024, but the law was notified only last night.

Question: Why did the Education Minister of the Modi government lie again that the law has been notified and the Law Ministry is left to make its rules?

Fact 2: At first the Education Minister kept denying the paper leak, then when arrests were made in Gujarat, Bihar, Haryana, he said that since papers have been leaked locally at some places, they will not be able to conduct the examination again. While the fact is that only 44 students were involved in the Pre-Medical Test in 2015, yet on the orders of the Supreme Court, the examination was conducted again for 6 lakh candidates.

Question: Even on NEET, the Honorable Supreme Court has said that if there is even 0.001% fraud then that action should be taken, but why is the Modi government not re-conducting the examination, while the Education Minister has accepted the matter of “irregularities”?

Fact 3: NTA has cancelled or postponed 3 major exams in 9 days. Even after passing the law, the paper of UP Police Recruitment and Promotion Board (UPPRPB) was leaked in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, the links of which were found to be linked to a company in Gujarat.

Question: Why are papers being leaked even after passing a law against paper leaks? When 70 papers were leaked in the last 7 years, why did the Modi government not take any strict action on it?