Seven chief ministers of non-BJP ruled states on Wednesday decided to jointly move the Supreme Court on the issue of postponement of JEE NEET exam scheduled in sept .
Parties like the DMK and AAP also joined the growing chorus against the holding of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) at a time when COVID-19 cases were rising across the country.
At a meeting convened by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on a range of issues ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, the seven chief ministers unanimously agreed on the need to file a review petition urging the Supreme Court to reconsider its recent order rejecting the postponement of the competitive exams.
Among the chief ministers who attended the meeting were West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee (TMC), Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackeray, who is heading the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, Punjab’s Amarinder Singh (Congress), Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren (JMM), Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot (Congress), Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel (Congress)and Puducherry’s V Narayanasamy (Congress).
A decision was taken to discuss the matter and evolve a joint strategy in this regard.
Sonia Gandhi said the Congress was on board on the issue and asked Banerjee, who proposed a joint appeal by the states in the apex court, to work out with Amarinder Singh and other chief ministers on the legal recourse. She said whatever steps need to be taken in the interest of students should be taken unitedly.
The Union Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said that the ministry was under so much pressure from the students and their parents to conduct JEE and NEET on the schedules dates. He also hinted that most students are ready and willing to write the examinations because most of them have downloaded the admit cards. “The Director-General of the NTA told me that around 7,50,000 JEE aspirants have downloaded their admit cards. This says that they want to write the exam,” he said.
However, a large number of students said that they downloaded the admit card just to know where their exam centre is and they still want the exam to be postponed. Interestingly, a lot of students took to social media, posting photographs of them burning their admit cards.
