While the President addressed the NEET issue in Parliament on Thursday, only a few km away, Jantar Mantar saw back-to-back protests with students and youth leaders demanding the dissolving of the controversy-riddled National Testing Agency (NTA) and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Simultaneously, Congress-affiliated NSUI members marched to the NTA and demanded its closure, attempting to lock the office from outside.
Two protests took place at Jantar Mantar simultaneously — one by the Congress’ youth wing, which resulted in detentions, and the other by multiple student outfits that have come under the banner of ‘India Against NTA’, which saw the participation of two recently elected members of Parliament.
Jantar Mantar, which has emerged as the focal point for the anti-NTA protests over the past few days, had posters such as ‘NTA must go’, ‘No Test Agency’, and ‘Dharmendra Pradhan must resign’ strewn across the roads on Thursday.
Towards the afternoon, as youth congress members climbed barricades, police detained some of them. A senior police officer said around 30-40 protesters were detained and later released.
Indian Youth Congress national president Srinivas B.V. said the NEET issue not only failed 24 lakh students, but also cheated the “country’s medical system and future”. He demanded a retest, resolution of complaints, for action against the culprits, and for the resignation of Mr. Pradhan.
‘Direct attack’
NSUI members reached the NTA office in Okhla where they raised slogans such as ‘Shut down NTA’. NSUI national president Varun Choudhary said, “The frequent postponements and paper leaks are not just administrative failures; they are a direct attack on the future of our youth. We demand that the NTA be banned and a more reliable, transparent system be put in place.”
The students said their primary demand was the dissolution of the testing agency. Mr. Choudhary added, “From tomorrow, we will lock NTA offices all over India if our demand to ban the NTA is not met.”
On the other end of Jantar Mantar, multiple student outfits, including the All India Students’ Association (AISA), Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), and smaller groups such as Disha and Collective, congregated with students from both DU and JNU.
CPI (ML)L’s Raja Ram Singh from Bihar, and Shashikant Senthil, Congress MP from Tamil Nadu, also addressed the protesters. While speaking to students, Mr. Senthil said, “Large-scale exams are only built so that a new form of hierarchy can be built into society. I think this examination, and in the larger context, the New Education Policy, is a reiteration of this casteist society...”
Mr. Singh said the government was not only breaking students’ dreams, but also not providing them with jobs. The two newly-elected MPs will address these issues in Parliament.
The students said they would continue the sit-in protest, which started on Wednesday, until their demands were met.
JNUSU president Dhananjay said, “We agree that the Director General was removed, and a committee was formed to look into the issue... but the issue here is the structure and functioning of the NTA. There have been multiple paper leaks over the years and lakhs of students have been impacted. This shows that the agency was flawed from the very beginning.”
