Student suicide over NEET UG echoes in Assembly, House adopts Bill to exempt TN from Exam.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Monday passed a bill to remove the National Admission and Eligibility Test (NEET) and allow admission to medical courses on the basis of grade 12 grades to ensure social justice, such as the suicide death of a medical aspirant fearing the result of the test he was due to take echoed in the House with the main opposition AIADMK targeting the government on the incident. Chief Minister MK Stalin introduced the bill and all parties, including the main opposition AIADMK and its ally PMK, as well as others like Congress, supported the bill, which aims to enable the admission to UG Medicine, Dentistry, Indian Medicine and Homeopathy courses on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination (class XII).
The BJP opposition staged a walkout to protest the government’s decision.
Earlier, as soon as the House convened, Opposition Leader K Palaniswami spoke of the suicide death of 19-year-old Dhanush in his hometown of Salem on Sunday and targeted the government over it.
He said that although the DMK promised to “cancel” NEET,NEET UGit was not done and several students did not prepare well. Some of his remarks were deleted by President M Appavu. Palaniswami looked for a job for a relative, in addition to cash assistance. Opposition party deputies, who came to the House with black badges, staged a walkout, led by Palaniswami. On Sunday, hours before his third appearance for NEET, UGDhanush, 19, from a village near Salem, committed suicide over fearing the result of the test he was due to take. The incident sparked a blame game with AIADMK holding the DMK regime responsible for the deaths and the state government targeting the Center. Stalin, responding, said the NEET was first conducted in Tamil Nadu when Palaniswami was the chief minister and did not take place even when the late J Jayalalithaa was the CM.
Recalling the suicide deaths of students, including S Anita in recent years, he said all of this happened when Palaniswami was the CM. The student, Dhanush, who took the extreme step, was unable to take the exam twice when AIADMK was in power.
Stalin also targeted AIADMK for rejecting bills passed during his rule in 2017 to obtain the state’s exemption from the scope of NEET UG and also for hiding it from the House. Stalin introduced the bill and called on everyone to support it for social justice, indicating that the current initiative would be totally different from what was done previously under the AIADMK regime.
The bill, referring to the recommendations of a high-level committee, said the government decided to enact a law to dispense with the NEET UGrequirement for admission to UG medical courses and to provide the ‘admission to these courses on the basis of the marks obtained in the qualifying examination, through “standardization methods”, to ensure “social justice, maintain equality and equality of opportunity, protect all communities Female students vulnerable to discrimination and integrate them into the mainstream of medical and dental education and, in turn, ensure strong public health care statewide, especially in rural areas. “
Stalin, who welcomed the main opposition party’s support for his government’s decision on NEET, recalled that in the past, when the DMK was in opposition, he supported the then AIADMK government on the question of jallikattu, the sport of bullfighting.
Nainar Nagenthiran of the BJP insisted that NEET had its advantages, such as an increased pass percentage, and led his party’s walkout to protest the bill.
