Congress attacks PM Modi, ministers over CBSE, NEET: ‘Manga, jaljeera discussed’ but on… | Today’s news
Congress leader Pawan Khera has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers for not saying a “single word” against the education system, amid controversies over NEET, CBSE and CEUT-US exams in recent times.
He said, “Yesterday I heard PM Modi’s episode of Mann Ki Baat, I was hoping the PM would talk about the CBSE and NEET exam scams that have ruined the future of many youngsters. But instead he discussed mango varieties, jaljeera recipes and the need to drink water during summer.”
Khera also urged people to compare the Prime Minister’s “daily posts and public statements on social media with what Rahul Gandhi has been saying in the last week or ten days”.
“Then you start asking: Does the country deserve this man as prime minister?” he asked, adding: “Is this what the Prime Minister of India is supposed to do in the midst of the crisis our younger generation is facing?”
The Congress leader also hit out at ministers, saying, “Look at the posts or tweets of ministers in the Modi government – no one has spoken a single word in condemnation of the education system or CBSE.”
“Meanwhile, when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was asked about the paper leak, he said – Rahul Gandhi is frustrated,” Khera said at a press conference on Monday.
Congress Question for Modi Govt
He further raised five questions before the government regarding the CBSE exam controversy. They were as follows:
1. “Experts and teachers point out 36-point flaws in OSM system – why did Modi government ignore it?”
2. “On whose order did the Modi government relax the conditions of the tender?”
3. “Why did you change the rules in favor of one company?”
4. “What is the relationship between COEMPT and BJP that it was preferred over TCS?”
5. “Why is the Modi government pushing the country’s education system backwards?”
Explaining the problem, Kera said, “In the past, students’ answer sheets used to go to the examiner in CBSE for checking, but then that system changed.”
“Now the answer sheets are scanned and uploaded on the portal. A system has been created for this and a company has been hired to start the process,” he added.
He said that in the first round of bidding, TCS applied. “However, since it was only one company, there was no tender process,” he said.
“In such a situation, another round of tendering took place in August 2025, for which COEMPT qualified and applied. However, the tendering rules were changed for COEMPT to secure the contract,” Khera said.
Khera also claimed that the share of education in the budget has been reduced by 50% by the Modi government. “During the UPA-2 period, 4.77% of the budget was spent on education, but today only 2.50% is spent,” he said.
Urging people not to be “distracted”, Khera said: “This government keeps doing something that is distracting us and we are all starting to discuss it. So I am telling you: don’t get distracted. Demand answers from Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the Modi government regarding NEET and CBSE.”
Earlier, Congress leader Jairan Ramesh attacked the union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the CBSE OSM controversy and said that ‘Pradhan Mantri’ was never known to hold himself or his colleagues to any standard of honesty or morality, but ‘Mantri Pradhan’ should follow his ‘rajdharma’ and resign.
Sharing a media report on X, Ramesh said that after weeks of denying cyber security vulnerabilities in its On Screen Marking (OSM) system, CBSE has finally acknowledged that the system has been compromised.
But what action does it plan to take against its supplier COEMPT, he asked, adding “not much”.
COEMPT’s benefactors in CBSE and the Education Department seem to have assumed that COEMPT would not be up to the task, he said.
