After Tamil Nadu, West Bengal Legislative Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution against NEET exam, urging state government to conduct joint entrance examinations in Bengal for the public interest at large.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay had tabled the resolution on Tuesday. Meanwhile, state education minister Bratya Basu said that they were never in favour of an all-India exam but were convinced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the Gujarat Chief Minister at the time.
The resolution condemns the National Testing Agency (NTA) for its alleged inability to conduct a free and fair examination and urges the state government to conduct joint entrance examinations in the state for the public interest at large, news agency PTI said.
"When the exams were handed over to the Centre in brazen step of dismantling the federal structure, there were protests from our side," Basu was cited as saying by NDTV.
BJP leader Sankar Ghosh countered the Bengal minister's stance, saying that those bringing the resolution are knee-deep in corruption. "Trinamool and transparency have no connection at all."
The Karnataka government on Tuesday passed a resolution calling for scrapping the NEET UG 2024 exam. Based on the resolution, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah-led government, will follow the same footsteps as neighbouring Tamil Nadu and conduct its own entrance exam for medical aspirants.
These Anti-NEET resolutions will now be presented during the current session of the Karnataka legislative assembly.
Tamil Nadu's DMK government had in 2021 passed a resolution against NEET, saying that the exam is "discriminatory and disadvantageous to rural students who wish to pursue a career in Medicine".
The Bengal government's move also comes a day after the Supreme Court refused to cancel the NEET UG 2024 exam and said there is no material to show that the sanctity of the entire examination was affected.
The apex court noted that it realises how directing a fresh examination would seriously affect over 24 lakh students who had appeared for the examination.
The Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala said that the demand for the cancellation of the exam is not justified. It added that the data on record "does not indicate systemic leak of question paper of NEET UG 2024."
"There is absence of material to conclude that result of NEET-UG 2024 exam is vitiated or there is a systemic breach," the top court said on Tuesday.
The National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other medical courses in private and government institutions across the nation.
