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.
Further, the irregularities in the conduct of NEET, scams that surfaced and grace marks that were awarded and later rescinded, leading to the Centre ordering a CBI inquiry, has led other states to oppose the test, he said.
Stalin referred to the letters written by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav to the Centre demanding scrapping of the NEET in the aftermath of irregularities in the conduct of the test.
"The voice of Tamil Nadu has now become the voice of the country," he said and appealed to the members to support his resolution against NEET.
"NEET should be abolished. Tamil Nadu should be allowed to admit students to medical courses taking the Plus Two marks as the qualifying criteria. Taking into account the irregularities in several states and opposition to the test, the Centre should appropriately amend the National Medical Commission Act to totally do away with NEET," the resolution said.
The resolution was unanimously passed, Speaker M Appavu said.
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