CHENNAI: Within four days of a five-member ministerial team meeting Union Ministers to obtain the Presidential assent for the two Bills exempting Tamil Nadu from conducting NEET for medical education admissions, another delegation comprising six ministers met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Health Minister JP Nadda and Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan on Monday, raising the same demand.
On Tuesday, Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K Palaniswami, too, may take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Talking to reporters after arriving in Delhi on Monday night, Palaniswami said he had sought an appointment with the Prime Minister to raise the issue. He expressed confidence that Tamil Nadu would get exemption from NEET.
Meanwhile, DMK’s Rajya Sabha MPs, led by ‘Tiruchi’ N Siva, also called on Health Minister Nadda and urged him to exempt the State from NEET.
Siva told mediapersons that Nadda had promised them that the Centre would take a decision on this by Tuesday.
The delegation that visited the ministers on Monday comprised P Thangamani, S P Velumani, D Jayakumar, C Ve Shanmugam, K P Anbazhagan and C Vijaya Bhasker and was led by Lok
Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai.
The team first met Pon Radhakrishnan and then along with him, they called on Union Ministers Jaitley and Rajnath Singh.
Answering queries of mediapersons, Thambidurai said the Union Ministers had promised to consider the request for exempting Tamil Nadu from NEET positively.
When a scribe referred to reports that the Prime Minister had already clarified that the Centre could not do anything in this regard since the NEET issue was pending before court, Thambidurai said, “We know that. There are many issues pending before the court. We are trying to get a solution, apart from the court.”
Asked about the Centre’s move to introduce NEET for engineering courses also, Thambidurai said the proposal was still under consideration and the Centre was yet to take a decision.