Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay has urged the Union government to scrap the NEET entrance examination and allow medical admissions to be conducted based on Class 12 marks.
In a statement, he noted that the NEET exam conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) was held on May 3 across 5,432 centres, including 31 towns in Tamil Nadu. He said about 22,05,035 candidates appeared nationwide, including around 1.4 lakh applicants from Tamil Nadu.
The Chief Minister said the recently held NEET was cancelled with the Centre’s approval following investigations by law-enforcement agencies into allegations of question paper leaks. He added that the matter has been transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and argued that the cancellation has shaken the confidence of lakhs of medical aspirants across the country.
He pointed out that NEET’s credibility had been questioned earlier as well, citing a 2024 paper-leak case in which FIRs were registered and later transferred to the CBI. He also referred to a high-level committee headed by former ISRO chairman Radhakrishnan, constituted on the Supreme Court’s directions, which submitted 95 reform recommendations.
Despite those recommendations, he said, another leak has surfaced within two years and the exam has been cancelled again, indicating structural flaws in a national-level test. Reiterating Tamil Nadu’s long-standing opposition to NEET, he said rural students, government school students, Tamil-medium learners and those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds have been adversely affected. He urged the Centre to fully cancel NEET and allow states to fill all seats under the state quota in MBBS, BDS and AYUSH courses based on Class 12 marks.
