CHENNAI: DMK leader M K Stalin on Tuesday criticised the Modi government for excluding educational institutions that come under the Central government from NEET and demanded the abolition of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
“The Centre betrayed Tamil Nadu by refusing to exempt the state from NEET,” Stalin said in a statement and questioned the rationale behind the Centre for allowing AIIMS and other central government institutes to conduct their own entrance examination (Institute of National Importance Combined Entrance Test or INI-CET) to admit students for medical courses.
“Why is this contradiction?” he asked and demanded to cancel the NEET exam since the Centre had announced separate entrance exams for its medical colleges
He further criticised the Centre for setting up an INI-CET centre for Tamil Nadu students in Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. Apart from this, the exam fee had been fixed as Rs 2,000 for OBC (BC and MBC) students, while Rs 1,500 for the students falls under the newly created economic weaker sections, he said and dubbed the disparity as “epitome of social injustice”.
He also demanded that the Union government permit 69% reservation in the admission of students to medical colleges in Tamil Nadu and urged chief minister Edappadi K Palanniswami to take appropriate efforts to ensure that.
AMMK leader T T V Dhinkaran took to social media to register his protest against the Modi government for adopting different yardsticks in conducting entrance exams state and centre government-run institutes. “It is not appropriate to conduct a separate entrance exam for postgraduate medical courses for Centre government-run institutions,” he tweeted and said it was “unjustifiable” when it arbitrarily allocates seats in state-run institutes.
He cautioned the Centre's approach, suppressing the state's rights and acting against federalism, would be a “historic blunder.”