CHENNAI: MP Su Venkatesan on Friday criticised the central government for allegedly always targeting the Pongal holiday to conduct important examinations.

Taking to platform X, CPM's Madurai MP pondered why most of the examination dates announced by the union government invariably fell on the day of Pongal. “Just last month we had to protest against the CA examination date that was to be held on January 14 and change it. But now again they have announced that the UGC-Net examination would be held in the same week as Pongal," he posted.

The National Examination Agency had recently announced that the UGC-NET examination that would cover 30 subjects would be held between Jan 15 and 16. The dates correspond with the Pongal festival which will be observed with three consecutive public holidays in Tamil Nadu, starting on Jan 14, followed by Thiruvalluvar Day and Uzhavar Thirunal on Jan 15 and 16.

Su Venkatesan said that Tamilians have an emotional connection with Pongal and it is a day to celebrate farmers. "Conducting exams on that day would cause a lot of inconvenience to the students. So I have written to the union minister for education requesting them to change the dates of the examination," he said.