NEET caught up in political mess

The Supreme Court’s decision to set aside state CETs and make the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) compulsory for medical admissions has snowballed into a major political issue in Maharashtra. NCP leader Dhananjay Munde blamed state education minister Vinod Tawde for the SC decision even though the court has disallowed CETs in all states. Congress has blamed it on the absence of an advocate general. The party said that despite it raising the issue several times, the state government had not appointed a new A-G after Shreehari Aney resigned from the post.

Mr Munde, who is the Opposition leader in the Legislative Council, alleged that 4.50 lakh students in the state would suffer because of the wrong policy of the government. Interestingly, the number 4.50 lakh quoted by Mr Munde was of all the students who appeared for the CET conducted by the state. Of those, 2.83 lakh had attempted CET for medical and dental college admissions, while the rest had appeared for engineering and pharmacy for which admissions can be given through CET.

Moreover, there are only 9,375 seats available in Maharashtra in private and government medical and dental colleges.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected pleas of state governments and minority institutions to allow them to hold separate entrance exams for MBBS and BDS courses for the academic year 2016-17.

“Minister for medical education Vinod Tawde is directly responsible for the damage caused to the careers of these students. He should accept

this responsibility and resign,” Mr Munde said. The NCP leader also claimed that the implementation of Neet has adversely affected students from Maharashtra and it shows central government’s grudge against Maharashtra.

However, the education minister dismissed Mr Munde’s contention and indicated that the Opposition leader was only playing politics on the issue.

“If Mr Munde was so concerned about the issue, he should have called me at least once before the SC passed the order,” Mr Tawde said. He added that the Maharashtra government had filed a review petition before the Supreme Court on three important counts. “The Supreme Court has been petitioned to leave out (from Neet ambit) those states (like Maharashtra) which have already held their own CET and allow students to write exams in their mother tongue,” he said.

Leader of Opposition in Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil of Congress said the BJP-led government had been found lacking in its support for students from the state. He said, “The SC verdict was unexpected and students of the state are going to lose out because of it. It shows that the state government fell short in its effort. It also shows that the state government carries little weight with the Centre. The Centre did not support the students from Maharashtra. Mr Tawde’s argument that students will be able to appear for the second stage of Neet is an admission of failure.”

However, Mr Tawde hit back at the Congress saying that none of the education ministers from Congress-ruled states turned up at the court hearing, while he personally attended it.

“If I have made any mistake I will resign on my own. Mr Munde will not have to demand it,” the minister added.