Student groups linked to the Congress and the CPM staged demonstrations on Tuesday outside the offices of the Union education ministry at Shastri Bhavan near Parliament against the cancellation of the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) over alleged "irregularities".
Several members of the Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) participated in the protest holding placards that read “PM compromised, paper compromised”, “Paper leak, Modi sarkar weak”, and “Doctor ki degree bikao hain (the doctor’s degree is for sale)”.
They also raised slogans like “Chaatro pe attyachar bandh karo (stop oppression of students)”, amid heavy barricading and police presence outside Shastri Bhavan.
“Today’s decision to cancel the NEET is a victory of student power and the voice of lakhs of aspirants across the country. The NSUI was among the first organisations to raise this issue and demand justice for students,” NSUI national president Vinod Jakhar said.
Opposition parties supported the protests.
Lok Sabha Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi posted on X: “This is not just a failure — it’s a crime against the future of the youth. Every time, the paper mafia gets away scot-free, while honest students bear the punishment. Now, lakhs of students will once again endure the same mental stress, financial burden and uncertainty. If one’s destiny is determined not by hard work but by money and connections, then what meaning will education hold? The Prime Minister’s so-called Amritkaal has turned into a vishkaal (poison era) for the country.”
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal called upon students to hit the streets in larger numbers. He told reporters here: “I think the paper has been leaked (multiple times). The exam has seen four leaks. Papers do not leak like this on their own. This means there is collusion at a very high level. There is connivance and political patronage...."
The DMK, which has historically opposed centralised exams and relied on school exams for entrance to colleges in Tamil Nadu, reiterated its rationale for opposing the NEET. Its leader and former Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin said on X: “#NEET — Never Been Neat.... NEET is an examination system riddled with fraud at every single stage. As I have consistently maintained, the issue is not merely that there are scams within NEET; rather, NEET itself is a scam!"
Additional reporting by PTI