Rahul Gandhi Mocks PM Modi for his silence on NEET Scam; warns of serious repercussions if not acted
From Our Political Correspondent
New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for letting the “paper leaks continue unabated.” Attacking PM Modi and his government at the centre for the recent medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024 (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) scam Mr Gandhi told the media on Thursday that “paper leaks will continue in the country as long as the universities remain captured by the BJP and Sangh Parivar. He termed paper leak an “anti-national activity” since it “hugely hurts the country’s young people, who are the country’s future”.
He further said “paper leaks are happening because all the universities and their vice-chancellors have been captured by the BJP and its parent organisation. They have penetrated the educational institutions and destroyed them… As long as this capture cannot be reversed, paper leak will continue.”
Saying that paper leaks “are endemic in India, “the congress leader referred to the NEET scam as an expansion of Vyapam Scam” of Madhya Pradesh that had put the then Shivraj Singh Chauhan-led BJP government in the docs. “Now, we are seeing an expansion of the idea of Vyapam across the country. BJP states have had to deal with this, Uttar Pradesh has had to deal with this, Madhya Pradesh has been a centre of this, Gujarat has been a centre of this and now, they have expanded this idea to the rest of the country.”
He said, culprits of such scams needed to be booked under anti-national charges for the honest students suffer and students, who want to cheat benefit. “This is extremely damaging to students and it’s happening, because all our Institutions have been captured. Vice Chancellors are placed, not based on merit, but because they belong to a particular organization and this organization and the BJP have penetrated our education system and destroyed it. What was done by Mr. Narendra Modi to the economy with demonetization has now been done to the education system.”
On a specific question regarding the NEET scam Mr Gandhi said “of course investigation is going on, but the scheduled counselling session is not been postponed, it is going to happen as per the schedule, so, do you think that this is a mere eye wash when it comes to the investigation”. He further said that the government at the centre “can eye wash whatever they want, but they are going to get such pressure from the Opposition that they are going to think twice about whatever they are doing. Because we are not going to allow, this type of activity to be done as far as our students are concerned. Our students sit there, they work, they spend months, they dream about these exams for years, they spend huge amount of money. “
He affirmed that the Opposition “is simply not going to allow any of this eye wash that is taking place. We will make sure that we put so much pressure on them, that this issue is resolved.”
According to Mr Gandhi the silence from Prime Minister Modi on the NEET scam “is because the Prime Minister is crippled right now, the Prime Minister’s main agenda is the speaker. So, he is not bothered about NEET, he is not bothered about anything else.”
Referring to the on-going “crisis” within and outside the government, the Congress leader said “if right now you had an Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji, or a Manmohan Singh Ji, they might be able to survive what they are facing, because there is humility, there is conciliation, there is respect, but Narendra Modi does not believe in these things, Narendra Modi believes- my way or the highway. And now suddenly he has found that earlier there were Congress people who were not scared of him, now nobody in the country is scared of him. So, psychologically, it’s almost a fatal blow for the Prime Minister and he is going to really struggle and of course, now we have a stronger Opposition. So, it’s going to be interesting and quite a lot of fun.”
