CHENNAI: President Droupadi Murmu has withheld assent to the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021, which seeks exemption for Tamil Nadu from a common and uniform National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) for admissions to undergraduate medical education courses.
Informing the Tamil Nadu Assembly on the development on Friday, CM M K Stalin said the state would continue its struggle to abolish the test and said a meeting of the legislature party leaders has been convened on April 9 to discuss the issue. He said the state would also consult legal experts on the next course of action.
The bill was originally adopted by the state Assembly on September 13, 2021, and was returned by Governor R N Ravi on certain grounds. The Assembly re-adopted the bill on February 8, 2022, without any modifications, which the governor forwarded to the Union Home Ministry in the first week of May 2022 for Presidential assent. After 35 months, the Union Home Ministry has now conveyed to the state that the President has withheld assent to the bill.
The CM said, “The Tamil Nadu government had promptly provided all explanations sought by various union ministries, including health, AYUSH, home and higher education ministries. However, disregarding all of them, the Union government has denied assent to the Bill. With a heavy heart, I inform the House of this regrettable information that has come as a bolt from the blue for our students.” The CM, however, did not elaborate on what grounds the assent for the Bill has been denied.
The “undemocratic attitude” of the Union government, which is an affront to the state Assembly, is a dark chapter in the history of our federal constitution, Stalin said. “The Union government has disregarded the will of the people of Tamil Nadu and the resolutions adopted by this House. The people are watching this closely,” he added.
The Bill enacted by the DMK government was the most recent attempt to get rid of NEET through the Tamil Nadu Assembly. During the AIADMK regime, in February 2017, two Bills —Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2017, and Tamil Nadu Admission to Postgraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2017 — were adopted by the House, but the then president Ram Nath Kovind withheld his assent to those bills.
On July 8, 2019, speaking on a call attention motion on the NEET issue in the State Assembly, MK Stalin, the then Leader of the Opposition, charged that the AIADMK government had hidden the information that the President had withheld assent to the two NEET Bills without informing the State Assembly. The Bills have been waiting for assent for 27 months. Now, without giving room for such complaints, the CM has informed the House about the President’s decision to withhold assent.
Speaking to reporters outside the Assembly after staging a walkout over another issue, Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami said, “The DMK came to power in 2021 promising to cancel NEET. Deputy Chief Minister
Udhayanidhi Stalin then said he knew the secret of abrogating NEET. But nothing has been done so far. Now, the CM has announced an all-party meeting on NEET. “How long will the DMK deceive the people,” the former CM Asked.
Reacting to the CM’s remarks on the issue, BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan said the CM has drawn the curtains on the ‘NEET drama’ being enacted by the DMK government. Stating that the directive to enforce the NEET was given by the Supreme Court, she charged that instead of filing a case before the SC contending why there should not be NEET in Tamil Nadu, the DMK government was playing politics and ruining the future of the students. DMK leaders, including the CM, must apologise to the students of Tamil Nadu for cheating them, she said.
