Bengaluru, 12 May

The Congress unit in the State launched a scathing attack on the Centre over the cancellation of the NEET UG exams due to a paper leak. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Medical Education Minister even demanded that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign immediately.

In a statement, Siddaramaiah called the cancellation a “cruel betrayal”, noting that the exams were cancelled after more than 22 lakh students, including over 1 lakh students from Karnataka, wrote it. “In one stroke, the Union Government has pushed them back into uncertainty and distress,” he alleged.

“In 2024 itself, our government had placed Karnataka’s concerns on record: NEET is unfair to rural and poor students, weakens school education, and takes away the States’ rightful authority over admissions,” Siddaramaiah added. “Today’s cancellation proves that our concerns were real.”

He alleged that instead of taking responsibility, Pradhan evaded questions, “proving once again that the Modi Government does not care a whit about the country’s youth”.

Meanwhile, Patil told the media that “the BJP government at the Centre is entirely responsible for the mess”.

“This is a testament to the incompetence of the BJP-led government at the Centre. Where there is question paper leakage, crores of rupees are changing hands — this is nothing but corruption,” Patil added.

He urged students not to lose hope, even though he said conducting exams again was unfair to students.

He further noted that Karnataka’s own Common Entrance Test (CET) has been conducted without a single such lapse, claiming that the Modi government has no idea how to conduct exams.