'Abolish NEET', says Tamil Nadu CM Vijay citing structural flaws; backs 12th marks for MBBS admission

Tamil Nadu chief minister C. Joseph Vijay has urged the Union government to abolish NEET following the cancellation of NEET UG 2026 over alleged paper leak irregularities, arguing that the latest controversy has once again exposed structural flaws in the national entrance examination system. He called on the Centre to allow states to admit students to MBBS, BDS and AYUSH courses based on Class 12 marks.

Reiterating Tamil Nadu’s longstanding opposition to NEET, the chief minister said the examination disproportionately disadvantages students from rural areas, government schools, Tamil-medium backgrounds and economically weaker families.

In a statement issued by chief minister Vijay, said NEET UG 2026, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 3 across 5,432 centres nationwide, saw participation from over 22,05,035 candidates, including nearly 1.4 lakh students from Tamil Nadu.

Also read NEET was far from fair even before paper-leak controversies

The chief minister noted that the examination was cancelled after investigations into the alleged paper leak were initiated by law enforcement agencies and subsequently referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He said the development had “shattered the hopes” of medical aspirants and raised fresh concerns over the credibility of centralised entrance examinations.

NEET Paper Leak: Structural flaws

Vijay in his statement pointed out that this was not the first controversy linked to NEET. Referring to the 2024 paper leak case, he said FIRs had then been registered across multiple states and the matter was eventually transferred to the CBI. He also mentioned that the Union government had constituted a high-level expert committee under former ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan after directions from the Supreme Court, which submitted several recommendations for reforms.

Despite those measures, Vijay said another alleged leak had surfaced within two years, eventually leading to the cancellation of the exam. He argued that the repeated controversies reflected deeper systemic problems in the conduct of national-level entrance tests.