In both the Centre and state, leaders arrived with white masks that had ‘Ban NEET, save TN students’ written on them.
A day after the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) was conducted across the country, DMK MLAs in Tamil Nadu and the party’s MPs in New Delhi both registered their protest against the examination and demanded its cancellation. In both the Centre and state, leaders arrived with white masks that had ‘Ban NEET, save TN students’ written on them.
In the state assembly, DMK chief MK Stalin led the MLAs and brought up the subject of suicide by three NEET aspirants over the last two days, due to fear of the examination. Stalin stated that despite his attempts to shed light on this burning issue, the state government was unwilling to pay respects to the deceased aspirants.
“Today was the first day of assembly and we were paying respects to deceased leaders. Before this got over I requested the speaker that we are condoling the deaths of leaders who died due to coronavirus and we should also condole the deaths of aspirants who have died by suicide due to NEET. I said we have to include their names to the list. But this was not accepted,” he said. “We have only two more days for the assembly session to end (due to coronavirus pandemic). But we have several issues to address especially NEET which is causing students to take their own lives,” he stated.
In the capital, meanwhile UPA allies, primarily led by the DMK, staged protests outside the Parliament on Monday demanding cancellation of the undergraduate exams, just hours ahead of the start of the Monsoon Session. DMK MPs including Tiruchi Siva, TR Balu and Kanimozhi were part of the protests.
Siva reportedly told the media that NEET deprives poor and rural students who score high marks in school of a medical seat because they are unable to get private coaching.
DMK MP Gautham Sigamani told IANS that due to Covid-19 several students could not prepare well for NEET. Many of them in Tamil Nadu could not reach examination centres.
Watch DMK MPs protest in Parliament –
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The opposition members have demanded immediate cancellation of the NEET exams. They have urged the central government to cancel and hold the exams afresh at a later date when situation improves in the country and transport and other facilities were totally restored.
(With inputs from IANS)
Source: The News Minute