An all-party delegation led by DMK Parliamentarian TR Baalu called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Monday, January 17, and urged him to take appropriate measures to ensure the President's assent to exempt Tamil Nadu from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). The meeting came after several complaints were raised regarding the Union government not meeting representatives from Tamil Nadu or acting swiftly on the issue.
The delegation also comprised representatives of the AIADMK. They had urged the Home Minister to direct the Tamil Nadu Governor to forward the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill 2021, seeking to exempt medical and dental undergraduate courses in the state from NEET, immediately to the President for his consideration.
The Union Minister should take necessary steps to obtain the President's assent to the bill at the earliest and save the future of Tamil Nadu children, they had said. The delegation also urged the Union government to uphold the spirit of cooperative federalism. They submitted a memorandum containing the demands to Amit Shah on the occasion.
The delegation included parliamentarians A Navaneethakrishnan (AIADMK), Vaiko (MDMK), D Ravikumar (VCK), Jayakumar (Congress), PR Natarajan (CPI(M)) and legislators GK Mani (PMK) and T Ramachandran (CPI).
The Tamil Nadu BJP had walked out of the all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister MK Stalin on January 8 in Chennai to discuss the pending Bill, saying that NEET is against social justice. Stalin, who earlier claimed NEET affected the dreams and aspirations of the rural and poor students in pursuing medical courses, had on January 12 appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "favourably consider" the state's request for exemption from NEET for students' admission to medical colleges.
Since the inception of the NEET examination, students, parents, teachers, and political parties in the state have been protesting to scrap the examination. The state had also witnessed multiple instances of students’ death by suicide, citing NEET as the reason.