The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday got a resolution passed in the Assembly under Article 169 of the Constitution, condemning the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), and demanded the reinstatement of the previous Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted by the Bengal government.

The resolution moved by TMC ministers Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas, Shashi Panja, Chandrima Bhattacharya, chief whip Nirmal Ghosh and senior MLA Ashok Kumar Deb also demanded the dissolution of National Testing Agency (NTA) as it had failed to conduct such a major exam.

The motion that was passed through voice vote read: “This House, while strongly condemning the failure of National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct undergraduate and postgraduate examinations fairly and freely, urges the Government of West Bengal to conduct the JEE for ensuring a robust public healthcare system across the state, particularly in far-fledged rural areas, in public interest.”

State parliamentary affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay alleged that by taking away the responsibility of conducting the exam from the hands of the state, the central government was trying to destroy the federal structure of the country. “Education is on the concurrent list but the central government like everything is trying to control education also.”

Chattopadhyay was referring to the creation of the NTA in 2017 to mainly conduct entrance exams for three top undergraduate admissions — JEE-Main for engineering, NEET-UG for medicine and CUET-UG. Earlier, state and central boards and universities used to conduct their exams separately.

Referring to the alleged controversies regarding paper leak and grace marks by NTA in NEET-UG, state education minister Bratya Basu said: “This year, there are 67 toppers who scored 720 out of 720, 300 students who got more than 700, 27,000 students who got more than 650 and 9,000 students who got more than 590. This is unthinkable.”

Chief whip of the Opposition Shankar Ghosh, however, said the state government didn’t have the moral right to question NEET after the SSC scam. “When a minister (Partha Chatterjee) and crores of rupees have been recovered from him, how can the state government ensure that there will not be any further scam? This government has lost its credibility,” he said.

“The Supreme Court refused to cancel the NET-UGC 2024, saying there is no material to prove a systemic breach. After such an observation, how can our Assembly move such a motion?” he asked.