Mantri Pradhan must resign, NTA should be disbanded: Congress

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday attacked the Modi government over the alleged irregularities in the UGC-NET exam, demanding that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan must resign and the NTA disbanded.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh shared on X a media report which stated that several students, who appeared for the Sociology paper in the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) on June 30, have alleged that the examination was leaked.

He said days after the NEET-UG exam was leaked in May 2026, the 'Mantri Pradhan' announced that the NEET exam would now be conducted via a computer based test (CBT) from next year onwards.

The implicit promise was that a CBT paper cannot be leaked unlike a pen and paper examination, Ramesh said on X.

"Now there are reports that the UGC-NET Sociology examination this year appears to have been leaked despite being a CBT. Earlier we had seen that questions in the UGC-NET English Exam were wholesale lifted from past papers without any changes," Ramesh said.

The bottom line is that whatever be the format of the exam, paper leaks and irregularities are occurring because the Modi government's Education Ministry is compromised and the National Testing Agency (NTA) is deliberately incompetent and incapacitated, the Congress general secretary in-charge communications alleged.

"The Mantri Pradhan must resign and the NTA must be disbanded," Ramesh said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also attacked the Modi government on Wednesday over alleged irregularities in the UGC-NET exam, saying it continues to turn a blind eye and sleep soundly despite repeated "scams" as years of hard work put in by lakhs of students hold no value for it.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha had said the entire country knows that its is futile to expect any accountability or action from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pradhan.

Gandhi had shared on X a screenshot of a media report claiming that student leaders in Rohtak, Haryana, had levelled serious allegations regarding the UGC-NET June 2026 examination conducted by the NTA.

In his post in Hindi, Gandhi had said, "The serious allegations that have surfaced regarding last week's UGC-NET exam are utterly shocking. Just a few weeks after the NEET paper leak, reports are now emerging that a 100-page PDF was circulated right before the UGC-NET exam.

"This PDF pertains to the question paper setting, which is available only with the NTA. Nearly 90 questions in the PDF match those from the actual Sociology question paper," he had said.

"Even after the repeated scams in NEET and NET, the Modi government continues to turn a blind eye and sleep soundly, because the years of hard work put in by lakhs of students -- who burn the midnight oil -- holds no value for them," the former Congress chief had said.

There was no immediate response to the allegations from the NTA that conducts national-level higher education entrance exams.