The Lok Sabha on Friday was adjourned till July 1 amidst Opposition members seeking the acceptance of an adjournment motion to suspend all business and discuss matters related to National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
Speaker Om Birla said that he could not allow it as the House was about to discuss the Motion of Thanks on President Draupadi Murmu’s joint sitting to Parliament yesterday.
With the Opposition not relenting, an uproar continued and the Speaker subsequently adjourned the House till Monday.
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, earlier on Friday demanded a discussion on NEET in Parliament, adding that the discussion must happen “respectfully.”
“Yesterday, all the leaders of the opposition parties had a meeting and it was unanimous that today, we want a discussion on the NEET issue. There should be a discussion on NEET here in the House. I request the Prime Minister that this is an issue of the youth and it should be discussed properly and it should be a respectful discussion. We will do it respectfully. You should also join the discussion, you should also participate because this is a matter for the youth. A message should go from the Parliament that the Indian government and the opposition are talking about the students together,” Rahul Gandhi told ANI before entering the Parliament.
The LoP inside the Parliament said, “We wanted to give a joint message to the students of India, on behalf of the Opposition and the government, that we consider this an important issue. So, we thought that to respect students, we would have a discussion on NEET today, a dedicated discussion…”
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said, “…On behalf of the government, we have made it clear that we will give detailed information on whatever issue is raised. We assure the members once again that the Government is always ready for discussion. But by halting the proceedings of the House, the tendency adopted by Congress party – of not letting the House function – is not right…I condemn this. I appeal that those should not happen again.”
Notably, for the NEET-UG and UGC-NET exams, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on June 23 registered a criminal case over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of the examination by the NTA and formed special teams to probe the matter.
As per the agency’s FIR, certain “isolated incidents” occurred in a few states during the conduct of the NEET (UG) 2024 examination, which was held on May 5, 2024.
The NEET (UG) 2024 Examination was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 5, 2024, at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 cities abroad, with over 23 lakh candidates appearing for the examination.
An unprecedented 67 candidates achieved a perfect score of 720 marks out of 720, which led to widespread protests in the country.
The Ministry of Education said it has constituted a high-level committee of experts to make recommendations on reforms in the mechanism of the examination process, improvements in data security protocols, and the functioning of the NTA.