AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam, on Saturday said that but for the 7.5% law enacted by his party, while in power last year, on horizontal reservation for NEET-qualified students of government schools for admission to medical courses, the number of such students joining medical courses would have been hardly eight.
In a statement, he recalled that in 2019-20, the number of government schools’ students joining the courses was six. The law was framed by the previous AIADMK regime, conscious of the difficulties faced by rural and the poor students in getting admission to the courses. As a result of the law, the number of the government school students joining the courses was more than 400.
Reacting to Medical Minister Ma Subramanian’s observation that the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) would be held this year, Mr. Panneerselvam said this had exposed the DMK who, during the campaign for the Assembly election, had promised that it would repeal NEET in the event of getting to power.
The AIADMK coordinator wondered how it was fair for the DMK to blame his party for facilitating the conduct of coaching classes for NEET when it was the latter that had paved the way for the introduction of the test. He drove home the point that DMK, when it was a part of the Congress-led government at the Centre, should have taken steps for getting NEET withdrawn or, at least, withdrawn its support to the Central government. Had this been done at the beginning, NEET would not have arisen as an issue, the AIADMK leader added.
