NEET leak: Congress rejects claims on PM Modi getting clean chit from House panel

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday continued its attack on the government over the disruption of the NEET-UG 2026 exam, dismissing claims that a parliamentary standing committee has given a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh wrote on X, “The Modi government and its Education ‘system’ – thoroughly discredited and exposed as incompetent, corrupt, and arrogant – is now relying on out-of-context quotes, rumour, and news.

Ramesh, Congress General Secretary in charge of Communications, said, “The Standing Committee on Education has given no clean chit to the Prime Minister or his ‘system,’ and Digvijaya Singh did not express his confidence in them. One English language media report is spreading mischievous news based on sources whose agenda is only to mislead.”

“Digvijaya Singh noted that we have been informed by the Solicitor General that the Prime Minister is monitoring the NEET re-exam personally. For the sake of our students, we must believe that the exam will be held successfully,” said Ramesh on X.

“It is impossible for any reasonable mind to have any faith in the Pradhan Mantri and his ‘system.’ This ‘system’ botched up the investigation in the 2024 NEET-UG paper leak. This ‘system’ continues to deny that the NEET-UG 2026 paper was leaked, when the truth is evident to all. This ‘system’ has not only wrecked the administration of exams in higher education but has done so in CBSE as well,” said Ramesh.

He added that PM Modi’s “government and its Education ‘system’ – thoroughly discredited and exposed as incompetent, corrupt, and arrogant – is now relying on out-of-context quotes, rumours, and fake news”.

The NTA is scheduled to conduct the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination on June 21, with admit cards expected to be issued by June 14. The agency had cancelled the original examination on May 12 following allegations of a paper leak, prompting widespread concern among candidates and their families.

Earlier, while demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Ramesh questioned the CBSE’s intentions to penalise the contractor allegedly responsible for laxity in the On-Screen Marking (OSM) process.

“The Prime Minister has never been known to hold himself or his colleagues accountable to any standards of ethics and integrity. But Minister Pradhan should resign to fulfil his ‘rajadharma’,” said Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on X.

A day after the Central Board of Secondary Education said that it had taken complaints related to mismatched answer sheets and other lapses related to the revaluation process, Ramesh said, “After denying cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the On Screen Marking (OSM) system, CBSE has finally acknowledged that the system was compromised.”

IANS