TN Elections 2021: Why Opposition Parties In Tamil Nadu Are Promising To Abolish NEET In Their Poll Manifestos

The DMK has made in its 2021 Election Manifesto is that it will bring in a law to abolish the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for MBBS and BDS admissions in the state. The Tamil Nadu Congress has also followed the footsteps of DMK and promised the same.

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Tamil Nadu Elections 2021: After DMK, the Tamil Nadu Congress released its manifesto for the upcoming elections promising the students of Tamil Nadu that they will take steps to abolish NEET, the national medical entrance exams. 

According to the Tamil Nadu Congress, the NEET examination is discriminatory against students of certain states. In addition, it interferes with the state government’s right to admit students domiciled in the state to medical colleges of that state. Hence, the party wants to dispense with the NEET examination and substitute it with a state-level examination of an equivalent standard, approved by the competent authority for admission to medical colleges in that state.

The DMK manifesto read in Tamil, "When Kalaignar was the Chief Minister, the admissions to medical courses in Tamil Nadu were based on the marks obtained by students in their Class 12 Board exams. The present Union Government has introduced NEET and snatched the opportunities of students in Tamil Nadu to fulfill their medical ambitions. Once DMK comes to power, a law will be passed to abolish NEET in the first Assembly session and steps will be taken to acquire the President's assent for the law."

The tussle to scrap NEET goes back to 2017

The issue took an ugly turn when Anitha, a dalit student committed suicide, after failing to crack NEET, in September 2017. Anitha had scored 1176/1200 in the 12th standard exams in the Tamil Nadu State Board. However, her board marks were not considered for admission in NEET UG, as she had scored only 86/720. The minimum eligibility cut-off for making it into the merit list was 40 percentile for students in the reserved category. Several parties and activists took up her case, saying that disadvantaged students like her bore the brunt of NEET imposition on the state by the Centre.

NEET which was declared unconstitutional by the Apex Court in 2013 was restored in 2016.

The AIADMK government had, in fact, tried protecting state board students’ medical aspirations by passing a law granting 85% reservation for MBBS and BDS admissions in state medical colleges in June 2017, immediately after the NEET-2017 results were published. However, this law was struck down by the Madras High Court in July 2017 after a CBSE student filed a petition stating that the 85% reservation is discriminatory. The state government’s legislation exempting Tamil Nadu students from NEET was pending with the Union government back then.

However, the Union government, in August 2017, refused to grant assent to this legislation by stating that the rules of NEET cannot be changed for one state. This response, submitted to the Supreme Court, which was hearing a plea filed by six students who sought an order directing the state government to conduct MBBS and BDS admissions in Tamil Nadu solely based on the NEET merit list.

In January 2020, the Tamil Nadu government filed a fresh plea against NEET in the Supreme Court and called in unconstitutional. The petition filed by the state government said that NEET is against the welfare of students from rural Tamil Nadu and attached data-based evidence on how NEET has adversely affected a major chunk of students in the state.

In 2013 also, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha urged the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to drop the Centre's move to reintroduce NEET which was later implemented in 2016.