Vijay Wants Cancellation Of NEET

Chennai: Giving a clarion call for the cancellation of NEET (the National eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical admissions), Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay said the introduction of the entrance examination had severely disadvantaged the students from rural areas, Government schools, Tamil medium backgrounds and socio-economically disadvantaged families.

Referring to the cancellation of the NEET UG-2026 examination that was held on May 3 across 31 cities in Tamil Nadu, the Chief Minister said the Tamil Nadu government had been consistently and unanimously opposing NEET since its very inception.

He reiterated the State’s long pending demand for abolishing NEET and permitting the States to fill all seats under the State quota in MBBS, BDS, and AYUSH courses on the basis of Class 12 marks.

That the National Testing Agency had cancelled the NEET examination this year with the approval of the Union Government following investigations by law enforcement agencies into the alleged leakage of the question paper was conclusive proof of flaws and structural flaws in the national level examination, he said.

The matter had been referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation for an inquiry, he said, adding that this was not first time NEET had been compromised. In 2024, the question paper was leaked and FIRs were registered across six States and transferred to the CBI, he said.

On the basis of directions from the Supreme Court, the Union Government constituted a High-Level Committee of Experts under K Radhakrishnan, former Chairman of ISRO, which submitted 95 comprehensive recommendations for reforms and despite all that another paper leak had occurred within two years, he said.

The NEET-UG 2026 was conducted across 5,432 centres with 22,05,035 candidates appearing for the entrance examination, including approximately 1.4 lakh candidates from Tamil Nadu, and its cancellation had shattered the hopes of lakhs of medical aspirants, Vijay said.