For the first time in the history of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, a Bill returned by the Governor was re-adopted “unanimously” on Tuesday.
The ruling DMK, backed by the principal opposition party, the AIADMK, and other parties, including the Congress, the PMK, the VCK and the Left, re-adopted the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021, which seeks to dispense away with NEET-based admissions.
The Bill, originally passed in September last, was returned by Governor R N Ravi earlier this month contending that an expert committee, which recommended abolition of the NEET, was flawed in its view. The four-member BJP had walked out of the Assembly before the Bill was moved by Chief Minister M K Stalin for re-adoption.
In a hard-hitting speech, Stalin said, “We have not gathered here only for debating against the NEET. We have gathered here to protect the powers of the Tamil Nadu Legislature and its rights. The underlying philosophy of cooperative federalism is to protect the many communities, languages and cultures. We have gathered here to protect cooperative federalism.”
Reiterating his strong concerns against the NEET, Stalin said by conducting an entrance examination in which the questions were not from the State Board syllabus, like apartheid, a discriminatory regime was being created. It was tantamount to practising modern-day untouchability.
He reminded the House that far from ensuring merit, NEET was flawed as there were instances of students and parents getting arrested for writing the exam through impersonators.
“NEET not only sends students to the graveyard (a reference to deaths by suicide of some aspirants) but also to jail,” he said. Speaking on behalf of the AIADMK, former Health Minister C Vijayabaskar said his party would back the DMK Government’s legal efforts to get exemption from NEET for Tamil Nadu.
Several leaders, representing multiple parties in the House, disapproved of the Governor’s action in returning the Bill to the House. They felt he had acted beyond his powers as he was expected to only forward the Bill to the President for assent. Speaker M Appavu disapproved of the Raj Bhavan’s action of making public the essential contents of the Governor’s letter returning the Bill and said those responsible for it must ponder if it was appropriate to do so. Earlier, the Health Minister gave a point-by-point rebuttal to the reasons cited by the Governor in his letter while returning the Bill.
