Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami must immediately take steps to get the President’s assent to the two Bills adopted by the State Assembly against NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president, K.S. Alagiri, said.

Mr. Alagiri said the Tamil Nadu government must stop the Centre’s imposition of NEET. “If the Tamil Nadu government is unable to take steps to stop the imposition of NEET, there will be a situation where we will need to decide on what kind of protests we will have to do to prevent NEET,” he said.

NEET has already been postponed twice this year due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, but now it has been announced that it will be conducted on September 13. “As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, the government has cancelled the exams for class 10 and class 11 students. Besides, semester exams in colleges too have been cancelled. Under these circumstances, how can NEET be held?” he asked.

He also said there were almost 1.39 lakh applicants last year to take the NEET. But this number has reduced to 1.17 lakh this year. “It is because students in the State have lost hope that they will be able to crack NEET,” he said adding that only around 7,500 students from government schools in the State apply to take the exam.

“While it has become clear that students from government schools have been forced into a situation where they cannot crack NEET, what is the use of holding the exam? For whose benefit? I request the government to cancel the exam, as the backward classes and OBC students from villages have been denied an opportunity to get admission to medical colleges,” he said.