Cong, ABVP Train Guns on NTA Over UGC-Net Retest

New Delhi: While the Congress launched a scathing attack on the National Testing Agency (NTA) over its decision to conduct a retest in three UGC-NET subjects, the RSS-affiliated ABVP also came out against the agency on Monday, with both demanding accountability for the lapses.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded that the NTA leadership be held accountable and said his party would not stop until Prime Minister Narendra Modi answered for students’ academic years being “stolen”. The ABVP said serious errors in a national-level examination raised questions over the quality and credibility of the entire process.

Gandhi alleged that the education system had become an “extraction machine”, pointing out that the UGC-NET examinations for Sociology, English and Commerce were held between June 22 and 30 but were cancelled nearly two months later because of errors in the question papers and repetition of old questions.

“Thousands of candidates who prepared for years, filled forms, paid the fees, travelled to distant centres, must now do it all again in September. NTA makes the mistake but the student serves the sentence,” Gandhi said.

He also questioned whether the papers had been leaked before the examination and alleged that there would be no accountability for the lapses.

Gandhi said the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan was only the “first step” and demanded accountability from the NTA leadership. “Your years are being stolen and we will not stop until Modi answers for it,” he told students who would have to appear for the examination again.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), meanwhile, expressed serious concern over the re-examination and asked the NTA to explain how such errors occurred and why they were not detected during the preparation and review of the question papers.

“Serious errors in a national-level examination like UGC-NET are deeply concerning. Students should not have to pay the price for NTA’s lapses. Playing with the future of students must stop,” ABVP national general secretary Virendra Singh Solanki said.

The ABVP demanded that clear accountability be fixed at every stage of the examination process and asked the NTA to ensure proper examination-centre allocation and adequate travel arrangements so that candidates did not face additional financial or mental stress during the retest.

It warned that it would raise the issue with students across the country if their concerns were not addressed and reforms implemented within a stipulated period.

The retest decision also triggered protests by the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), All India Students’ Association (AISA) and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), which demanded accountability for repeated examination lapses.

AISA demonstrated outside the NTA headquarters at Okhla on Monday and demanded that the agency be scrapped. The SFI also held a protest there and called for nationwide demonstrations.

The CPI(M)-affiliated SFI said the errors had once again exposed the NTA’s failure to conduct fair and error-free examinations and demanded a judicial inquiry into the repeated lapses.

The CPI(M) also demanded that the NTA and the National Education Policy, 2020, be scrapped, saying the errors had exposed what it called the “entrenched rot” in the education system.