Cornered by the BJP in Bengal on the TET (teachers’ eligibility test) issue the Trinamool Congress has decided to take the battle back to the enemy camp by launching a counter attack on the NET issue (national eligibility test).
Accordingly the party is all set to strongly raise in Parliament the alleged scam that took place in the NEET-UG and NET exams involving more than 35 lakh aspirants. For this the TMC is likely to coordinate with all opposition outfits including the Congress Party, inside sources said.
“What has taken place in the NEET and NET exams is a matter of grave concern … it is a big big scam and has to be dealt with strongly … we will raise the issue strongly in parliament and go to the end of it,” senior TMC parliamentarian Sudip Bandopadhyay said a day before the new Lok Sabha meets on Monday.
National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted every year to select candidates for medical courses. The students who qualify NEET get the opportunity to secure a seat at any Medical colleges in any State. On the other hand joint CSIR UGC-NET is conducted to determine the eligibility of aspirants for the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), Assistant Professor positions, and PhD admissions in accordance with the eligibility criteria laid down by the University Grants Commission. “The Government is do9ing some eye-wash by removing this officer or that whereas the students are agitating on the roads … this is not done … you cannot play with the future of the young boys and girls … the Government will have to take responsibility and explain the conduct of its officials … whereas nothing has been done till now,” Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu said adding the issue needed a nation-wide agitation.
“Till now what we have seen is only the tip of the iceberg … the nation is not satisfied with this … a thorough investigation is needed and the real masterminds who are sitting at the helm haveto be caught,” Basu said.
Incidentally the Bengal ruling outfit has itself been fighting with its back against the wall on a number of corruption cases including the cash-for-teachers’-jobs scam that saw about half a dozen of its ministers and MLAs going to jail.
Reacting to the TMC’s claims, Union Minister and Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said that “it is not TMC Government which is stuck neck-deep in corruption … investigations have started and not a single person found guilty will be spared,” adding the TMC leaders should look
at their own leaders before criticizing others.
“The people of Bengal have lost count of scams that this Government has done in the past 10 years of his rule … let them first take stock of those scams and bring the real culprits out,” he said.
The Left on the other hand hit out both at the BJP and the TMC. Senior leader and central
committee member Sujan Chakrabarty said, “BJP Government has come out with its own version of scams to match those done by the TMC … for Mamata Banerjee Governments SSC and TET scams the Modi Government has come out with NEET and NET scams.”
