Chennai, Aug 11 (IANS) Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Tamil Nadu leaders on Tuesday opposed the adoption of a resolution by the state Assembly, urging the Centre to abolish the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses, saying that the examination is conducted as per the Supreme Court order and has benefited poor students.
However, the Congress and the DMK backed the resolution.
Talking to IANS, BJP chief state spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy said: “Whoever wants to oppose NEET, they are always hitting the wrong door. They have to go to the Supreme Court as under its direction only, the NEET examinations are conducted.”
He claimed that it is only because of NEET that poor government school students and rural students have qualified for medical education in the last seven-eight years.
“So NEET is definitely needed for ordinary, poor and rural students,” he stressed.
Echoing similar views, BJP Mahila Morcha national president Vanathi Srinivasan said: “It is based on the Supreme Court’s judgment that NEET has been implemented across the country. In Tamil Nadu, various political parties have demanded the abolition of NEET and the new government also has passed a resolution similar to many previous ones, but it is a Supreme Court order.”
She noted that if at all the TVK-led Tamil Nadu government wants to modify NEET, it has to approach the apex court.
BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan said: “Today one of the Tamil papers has carried an editorial that Tamil Nadu students are performing very well in NEET. So, the government should not disappoint the new aspirants. They should instead conduct good coaching classes and should encourage (the students).
Opposing the resolution against NEET examination, she urged the TVK-led Tamil Nadu government not to follow the footsteps of the previous DMK government.
However, Congress MP Manickam Tagore said that his party is “100 per cent” in favour of the resolution.
“NEET is an examination which is full of corruption, full of fraud. And therefore, India’s NEET should be stopped. Paper leak and coaching mafia are controlling it. Therefore, we are 100 per cent with the NEET scrap resolution of Tamil Nadu Assembly,” he told IANS.
DMK MP Tiruchi Siva stated that the Tamil Nadu Assembly has “reiterated” what was already done by the previous DMK government, while mentioning that the “Bill is pending for the President’s assent”.
“The ball is in the Union Government’s court now,” he said.
Moreover, he asserted that the DMK also would have supported the resolution.
–IANS
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