Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Friday passed a unanimous resolution urging the Centre to do away with the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and allow the state to grant admission in medical courses based on class 12 board marks as done before implementation of NEET.
The resolution was adopted by the House amid BJP MLAs' opposition and walkout. It has called upon the Centre to amend the National Medical Commission Act and scrap the all-India screening test taking into account the irregularities that have surfaced in the entrance test and rising opposition in several states.
BJP's ally, PMK, however supported the resolution piloted by Chief Minister and DMK president M K Stalin, who argued that the test was "discriminatory" and deprived the rural and poor students to access medical education while denying states their rights to admit students with Plus Two marks as the qualifying criteria.
BJP leader Nainar Nagendran argued that NEET is important because it has many benefits. Responding to the allegation of poor and rural students finding it difficult to pursue medical education because of the test, he said that the then Union Health Minister JP Nadda and then Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami ensured 7.5 per cent reservation for state government school students who cracked the test.
"NEET is needed. The Assembly resolution against NEET is unacceptable and we are staging a walkout," Nagendran said and walked out along with the BJP legislators.
The principal opposition AIADMK was not present in the House as all the members were suspended for the brief session concluding on June 29 for disrupting the House over the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy incident.
Moving the resolution, Stalin said apart from making medical education inaccessible to the poor and rural students, NEET will affect the medical services in the rural and backward areas. "The DMK has been consistently opposing NEET ever since it was made mandatory in 2017. We had even launched a massive signature campaign in support of abolishing it," the Chief Minister said and recalled that two earlier Assembly resolutions were adopted by the House seeking presidential assent to exempt Tamil Nadu from NEET.
