NEET: Stalin’s charges against AIADMK baseless, says OPS

Responding to Chief Minister MK Stalin’s attack against the AIADMK over the implementation of National Entrance cum Eligible Test (NEET) for the medical courses in the State, AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam said on Saturday that Stalin’s allegations against the party was false.

In a statement, OPS said that NEET was introduced in 2010 by the UPA-II government which had DMK as an alliance partner. However, the party failed to oppose the test then.

“While addressing a virtual election rally for urban local body polls, the DMK president made a false statement that NEET was not conducted during the DMK regime. Stalin’s assertion shows his political ignorance and lack of knowledge about the history of NEET,” the deputy leader of the opposition said.

It was during DMK’s Gandhiselvan tenure as the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare that NEET was published in the gazette, said Panneerselvam. “In his speech, the CM tried to grab credit in favour of his party saying the DMK had approached the Supreme Court against NEET. However, the SC passed direction only on the plea by Christian Medical College, Vellore, in 2012,” he added.

Panneerselvam also denied Stalin’s allegation that the AIADMK was lying about abolishing entrance exams in the State. “It is not us but the Chief Minister who is lying. The AIADMK government led by late leader J Jayalalithaa had passed a Bill to abolish the Common Entrance Tests for professional courses on January 27, 2006, and the same was published in the gazette in February 2006. However, the DMK made several hurdles to that initiative with an intention to postpone it so that the same legislation could be introduced in their regime for political reasons,” Panneerselvam added.

Meanwhile, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary TTV Dhinakaran slammed both the DMK and AIADMK for their failure to abolish NEET examination. “Chief Minister Stalin and Opposition Leader Edappadi K Palaniswami are merely staging election drama in the name of NEET abolishment. They are not revealing the truth,” Dhinakaran said in a statement.

He added that the government should accept the truth that NEET could not be scrapped now and come up with an alternative plan to help students from the State tackle the national level examination.