The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) launched massive protests across 24 states, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab, calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister and Union Education Minister over rigging in the NEET exam. AAP’s National General Secretary (Organisation) and Rajya Sabha MP, Dr. Sandeep Pathak, labeled the scandal as an act of treason, insisting both the Prime Minister and Union Education Minister lack the moral authority to stay in office. Dr. Sandeep Pathak highlighted that 24 lakh students were impacted by the rigging, which involved leaked papers sold for exorbitant sums and unjust grace marks awarded by the NTA. The AAP Rajya Sabha MP asserted that the BJP has a history of paper leaks, citing 70 instances in BJP-ruled states over the past seven years, and urged the Supreme Court to directly investigate the issue.
Addressing the media at the party headquarters, AAP National General Secretary (Organisation) Dr. Sandeep Pathak said in the last few days, a huge scam has come to light in the NEET exam. This NEET exam is very important for the country. Admission to the medical colleges in the country is done through this exam. There are around 1 lakh total seats in medical colleges in the country and about 24 lakh children appeared for this exam. The children appearing for this exam start preparing at a very young age, from standard 11th to 12th and now after the advent of coaching centres, the child starts preparing for it from the 10th standard itself.
“When a child appears at such a young age, that child does not prepare for the exam alone, his entire family prepares for this exam. Now you think that 24 lakh families are engaged in preparing for this exam day and night and when there is rigging in such exams, it is made a business, papers are sold, then it is no less a crime than treason,” he added.
Dr. Sandeep Pathak said that the doctors of India are considered to be the best in the whole world. It is said that the doctors of our country are very competent. This is said because the students who take admission in medical colleges in our country are selected very finely. “They are selected based on merit. Only the best of the best students get admission in the medical colleges. There is a system which is contributing to the good education of all our doctors. Now if you destroy this system, if you bring corruption in this system, then no one in the country will ever become a good doctor,” he said.
The senior AAP leader said the most important thing is that in a country where the dreams and future of our children are made a business, it would be wrong to consider it less than treason. I believe that if the country has to move forward, then the institutions will have to be strengthened, the country cannot move forward by breaking institutions in this way. The child of a middle-class man, a farmer, today has only one option: that they should study and take the exam and somehow pass it, then their future will be secured. Today if these papers start getting sold, today if fraud enters into this too, then he is left with nothing to hope for, said Dr Sandeep Pathak.
The AAP National General Secretary (Organisation) said there are two major allegations of fraud in relation to NEET which have come to the fore. First, there is the matter of paper leak. This paper was leaked 24 hours before the exam. The paper was leaked in Bihar and it was sold for around Rs 60 lakh to 70 lakh. A SIT was constituted there and that SIT is saying that there is an interstate gang which is doing this. In the same series, papers were sold through a coaching centre in Godhra in Gujarat; the paper was sold for around ₹35 lakhs to ₹50 lakhs, he said.
Dr. Sandeep Pathak said apart from this, there is another issue of marking. Now in such a big exam, there is National Testing Agency (NTA), which has been formed only to conduct the exam. The marking and the numbers given are not understandable. You will see that 67 people have secured Rank 1 in this exam. In the history of the country, it has never happened in any competitive exam that so many candidates have secured Rank 1 in an exam. It is not possible for more than one, two, three or four candidates to secure Rank 1. It happens on the rarest of rare occasions that 67 candidates secure Rank 1. Out of these 67 candidates, 6 were those who appeared from the same centre and that centre is in Jhajjar, Haryana. So out of 67 people, 6 people secured Rank 1 from the same centre.
“When NTA was asked, they said that they were given grace marks. You will be surprised to know that in the history of this country, grace marks have never been given for loss of time of candidates in any professional exam. Grace marks are given when any question is confusing or wrong. And in such a situation, grace marks are given equally to all the students. Here the reason being given is that grace marks were given because the exam started late. Up to 140 grace marks were given because the exam was delayed by 25 minutes. In the entire exam of 720 marks, you are giving 140 grace marks, which means it is a matter of shame,” he said.
The AAP National General Secretary (Organisation) said another interesting thing in marking is negative marking, if you give the right answer, you get four marks and if you give the wrong one, then one mark is deducted. So, if you calculate this, then there are many such marks which cannot be possible. Like they have given 719, 718, this is not possible at all. When NTA was asked, they said that they have given grace marks to 1563 candidates. The whole country wants to know who these 1563 candidates are to whom you gave grace marks, whose centre these 1563 belong to, to whom you gave grace marks and what is the basis of giving grace marks, he added.
The senior AAP leader said you will be surprised that these are not just two aspects, the most important aspect of this is what is the connection of the Bharatiya Janata Party with this scam. You will be very surprised that in the history of the country, all the paper leaks that have happened till date, all the businesses of selling the future of children in this way, have been institutionalized by the Bharatiya Janata Party. It means that no one knows better than them how to sell the paper, how to do business on it. “In this case also, the centre in Haryana from where 6 candidates were given Rank 1 belongs to a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I cannot reveal much about it at this stage as the case is going on in the court and I am sure that the court will take cognizance of it,” he said.
Dr. Sandeep Pathak said but this connection between the Bharatiya Janata Party and paper leak does not end here. This is just a small scenario, one aspect of this whole picture. Let me tell you that an article came in The Sunday Guardian and the Indian Express which says that till March 2023, 70 papers were leaked and the future of about 1.5 crore children is in danger. As many as 70 papers were leaked in 7 years and they kept the future of more than 1.5 crore children in the dark. Let me tell you that Gujarat has become a stronghold of paper leak, the genesis of the entire problem starts from here.
“In Gujarat, in the last 11 years since 2012, 11 papers were leaked. “From 2015 till date, no exam has been conducted in Gujarat without a single paper being leaked. The GPSC Chief Officer exam was leaked in 2014, Talati exam was leaked in 2015, Talati Surendranagar, Gandhinagar exam was leaked in 2016, Teachers Aptitude Test was leaked in 2018, Mukhya Sevika was leaked in 2018, Naib Chintesh was leaked in 2018. And this goes on and on. Not even a single examination has been conducted fairly in Gujarat. Gujarat is not the only state, wherever there is a Bharatiya Janata Party government this business is flourishing,” he said.
Mentioning about the infamous Vyapam scam, Dr Sandeep Pathak said there has never been a bigger scam related to examinations than the Vyapam scam that happened in Madhya Pradesh. Vyavsaik Pariksha Mandal (Professional Examination Board), Vyapam, conducts 13 such examinations for different jobs and admissions. Due to paper leak, thousands of non-deserving medical students and lakhs of professionals got admission. The interesting thing is that the then education minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Laxmikant Sharma, was caught by the police along with many BJP leaders.
“But it took 8 years to file the first FIR, just think what would have been the condition of those children and their parents that it took 8 years to file the first FIR. With the intervention of the Supreme Court, SIT was constituted, and cases were filed against more than 1200 people. But the unfortunate thing is that cases were filed against the children as well as the parents who got caught in this nexus and bought the papers. “And the most unfortunate thing is that according to SIT, 23 people died unnatural deaths in this case. So many murders took place in this, many children and parents lost their lives who got involved in this case knowingly or unknowingly,” he added.
The senior AAP leader said in the Part 2 of Vyapam, in an exam for Patwari, a merit list of 10 people was released. Out of 10 people, seven people who get Rank 1 were from the same centre. “And BJP’s connection does not end here, that centre belongs to a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. So, in this way, the expertise of the BJP in paper leak is very old, they have a very deep connection,” he said.
Dr. Sandeep Pathak said I want to tell the Prime Minister that in the last Parliament session, before the elections, the BJP government brought a law of Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means). I had also raised this issue in the House. This law says that the maximum punishment will be 10 years and the maximum fine will be ₹1 crore for the offence under the law. A paper is sold for ₹70 lakhs and you are imposing a maximum fine of Rs 1 crore. You will give 10 years of imprisonment to the person who has sold and ruined the future of millions of children. You think that some big leader will go to jail for this, someone will be made a sacrificial goat and will be sent to jail.
“I also stood up in the House and said that first of all, if all these things come up in any exam, then there should be a provision to immediately scrap it and conduct the exam again. Secondly, if any child or any parent gets caught in this unfairly, there should be a provision to protect them. Thirdly, when will the kingpin in this (Vyapam scam) be caught. Today you see that if you take this from 2012 till today, then rigging is happening continuously, and no one is getting caught,” he said.
The AAP National General Secretary (Organisation) said I request the Prime Minister and the Education Minister that we do not want to make this a political issue. But when you start selling the future of your children or your fraud reaches such a level that you start ignoring the future of children, then understand that you have no moral right to remain in the post. “Prime Minister, you should answer, apologize to the country, suspend your education minister immediately or he should resign on his own,” said Dr Sandeep Pathak.
The senior AAP leader said on behalf of our party, we have organized a protest and submitted a memorandum across the country today. In the coming days, we will make this campaign bigger. I request all those people not to see this issue through political prism, if the Bharatiya Janata Party has committed a crime or whoever is related to it, we will have to raise our voice against them otherwise nothing will be left in the country, he concluded.
AAP protested in 24 states against rigging in NEET exam
There is anger across the country against the injustice done to the students due to the rigging of the NEET exam. The AAP called for a nationwide protest on Wednesday against the mega scam in NEET. Party workers and supporters took to the streets in different parts of the country and marched and demanded the cancellation of the NEET exam. Under this, party workers demonstrated in different states of the country including Nicco Park Square in Odisha, Ambedkar Chowk in Raipur in Chhattisgarh, DC Office Karnal in Haryana, Roshanpura Chowk in Madhya Pradesh, Jalandhar in Punjab, Freedom Park in Karnataka, Ganeshgiri in Assam, Maharaja Hari Singh Park in Jammu, Party Office in Kashmir, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ambedkar statue in Telangana, in front of Ernakulam Central Government Office in Kerala, near T Nagar Bus Depot in Tamil Nadu, near Dadar East Station in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur in Maharashtra, Ranchi and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, Rani Rashmoni Avenue Kolkata in West Bengal, Income Tax Golambar Patna in Bihar, Moon Park Sector 7-A in Chandigarh, Gandhi Park Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Hazratganj Lucknow in Himachal Pradesh, Jaipur Collectorate in Rajasthan and Teen Murti Road in Delhi.
