NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu CM C Joseph Vijay on Wednesday extended his party’s support to the protests over the alleged irregularities in the NEET examination, condemning the detention of opposition leaders, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi.In a post on X, Vijay described the detention of leaders who had come out in support of students as “undemocratic” and criticised the Centre’s handling of the protests.“The arrest of several leaders—including the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Mr. Rahul Gandhi—who stepped forward to support the youth protesting in Delhi against the irregularities in the NEET examination, is undemocratic. These actions by the Union Government are condemnable,” he said.The actor-turned-politician said TVK fully backed the opposition’s protest within the Parliament complex and reiterated the party’s long-standing demand for the complete abolition of the NEET examination.“Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam extends its full support to the protest being held today within the Parliament complex by opposition parties, condemning the unfortunate incidents that occurred yesterday,” Vijay said.He maintained that scrapping NEET was the only lasting solution and argued that education should be moved from the Concurrent List to the State List to give state governments greater control over admissions and education policy.“Regarding NEET, TVK’s uncompromising stance is that the NEET examination system must be completely abolished,” he said, adding that if constitutional or legal hurdles prevented this, a “Special Concurrent List” should be created as an interim arrangement to empower states over general and medical education.“The Union Government must respect the sentiments of our people and our students. Consequently, the NEET examination must be completely scrapped. We reiterate that this is the only solution to this issue,” Vijay added.His remarks came as opposition parties continued to press for a discussion in Parliament on the alleged NEET paper leak and demanded the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Student groups, along with the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), have also been holding protests at Delhi’s Jantar Manta.
