The National Eligibility Entrance Test or NEET has been in the eye of many a storm recently. The latest addition to the NEET debate is Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's reply to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's claim that the government is being blind towards the students' plight and that the NEET should be postponed. Not just Gandhi, but Shashi Tharoor too said that the government is "unresponsive to genuine concerns” of the medical aspirants.
Pradhan took to social media to criticise Gandhi's comment on NEET. "Rahul Gandhi perceives himself to be an expert on everything without having an iota of knowledge. Overflowing vanity and a misplaced sense of entitlement of a failed crown prince is no alibi to meddle into the schedule of examinations, give undue stress and make the students suffer," said Pradhan.
The new education minister seems feistier than Ramesh Pokhriyal, who seldom engaged with anyone on social media let alone criticising in such harsh words. Pradhan also said that Gandhi had no qualification to pass a judgement on something like NEET. "Even the Supreme Court has not entertained the plea to reschedule the NEET examination citing the deferment as being unfair to a large number of students. What makes Rahul Gandhi the ‘pseudo expert’ question the collective wisdom of the bench and actual experts?" he asked.
Pradhan did not let go of a chance to pass a snarky 'Yuvraj' comment about Gandhi. "Yuvraj (crown prince) should stick to his expertise of concocting lies, peddling half-truths and being the antagonist to anything progressive, rather than issuing sweeping statements on matters he has no understanding of," he said.
Congress has recently put its weight behind the protesting students who want the exam to be postponed. “Subjecting them to unreasonable exactions is shameful. It’s time the BJP worked for people, not for bureaucrats,” said Tharoor in one of his tweets.
