Following damning reports of alleged irregularities in NEET-UG 2024 (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today claimed that paper leaks will not stop in the country as long as the educational institutions remained under the control of the BJP. Gandhi said that a paper leak is an “anti-national activity” as it “hugely hurts the country’s young people, who are the country’s future”.
“Paper leaks are happening because all the universities and their vice-chancellors have been captured by the BJP and its parent organisation. They have penetrated the educational institutions and destroyed them… As long as this capture cannot be reversed, paper leak will continue,” he said.
It was said that PM Modi stopped the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars, but due to some reasons, he has not been able to stop or doesn’t want to stop paper leaks in India, Gandhi charged.
The Raebareli MP had earlier called the BJP-ruled states the “epicentre of paper leaks”. Referring to the Vyapam scam in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, Gandhi said, “Vyapam happened in Madhya Pradesh. Now the government is spreading it across the nation. There has been an expansion of the idea of Vyapam.”
Since the NEET results were declared, coinciding with the Lok Sabha election results, students have been protesting about inflated ranks, perfect scores by multiple students, and about 1,500 students receiving grace marks. They are demanding a retest. The opposition supports the students and is protesting for justice.
The Congress has asked its state units to stage protests at their headquarters on Friday to demand justice for students. Other members of the INDIA bloc, including Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) have also accused the government of jeopardising the future of lakhs of students.
Hitting back at Gandhi, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, “Just because Rahul Gandhi failed for the 3rd time doesn’t mean that he can abuse the youth of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh…he said that Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are epicentres (of paper leaks).”
“Rahul Gandhi has nothing to do with the future of lakhs of students, he just wants to play his politics on this topic. In Rajasthan, paper leak happened but Rahul Gandhi did not utter a word on it,” he added.
The BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya alleged that the Congress and its Bihar ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are behind the NEET paper leak.
“Priyanka Vadra fired the first salvo to cover up the scam by posting video of fraud Arushi Patel. I.N.D.I Alliance leaders would have made crores, by covering up the scam, had they come to power. They now stand exposed,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Nearly 24 lakh students appeared for the NEET-UG 2024 for undergraduate medical courses on May 5. The results, announced at least 10 days before schedule, raised suspicion.
The government repeatedly denied malpractice and irregularities in NEET-UG, and also ruled out scrapping the entire examination over “problems at a handful of centres”.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre and National Testing Agency (NTA) to accept any mistake, if any, in conducting the NEET-UG this year and cautioned that even 0.01% negligence should be thoroughly dealt with.
Thirteen people have been arrested so far in connection with the probe into the alleged paper leak.
