NEET row: "Rahul Gandhi shedding crocodile tears," says Education Minister Pradhan

"The LoP and his cabal are all but shedding crocodile tears. The ground reality on paper leaks during UPA regime and when Shri Akhilesh was at the helm of UP will open a can of worms for both Shri Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav," wrote Pradhan on social media platform X.

"May be Rahul Gandhi understands the fundamentals and maths of unfair practices too well. That explains why the Congress government failed to implement the bills to stop malpractice in educational institutions, including the Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill, 2010. Can the LoP tell under what compulsions, pressure and for what considerations did the Congress Party refuse to bring laws to curb irregularities?" he added further.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi said, "Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan should have responded. He spoke about the Supreme Court and PM Modi but he is not able to say what is he doing on this. NEET is a very important issue for youth. We have always asked for discussion in Parliament but the government is not interested. We will keep raising this issue and keep pressuring the government."

Speaking in Lok Sabha during the Budget Session that got underway this morning, Gandhi asked Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan about the various steps the Ministry is undertaking to fix the alleged "systemic" rot in the present examination system and claimed that millions of students believe that the "system" is "fraud."

"As this is a systemic issue, what exactly are you doing to fix this issue at the systemic level," Rahul Gandhi asked.

Elaborating on his claim that all major examinations in the country suffer from a "serious problem," Gandhi said, "It is obvious to the whole country that there is a very serious problem in our examination system. This is not just in the question of NEET but in all the major examinations." (ANI)