As the nation's students boil over the NEET paper leak scam, which has led to the 2026 exam being rescheduled, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has again questioned PM Modi's silence on the issue, and the lack of action being taken.
The party's Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha on Sunday again demanded that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan be fired from his post, offering a comparison of NEET leaks in both 2024 and 2026.
"NEET 2024: Paper leaked. Exam not cancelled. Minister did not resign. CBI set up an investigation. A committee was formed," he wrote in an X post, later comparing it to the same situation in 2026.
Arguing that Pradhan had "failed repeatedly" in stopping NEET exam leaks, Gandhi also questioned why the PM was "silent time and again on this 'exam paper discussion'".
This comes amid growing public anger over not just the NEET scam itself, but also the efforts of lakhs of students gone in vain after Pradhan announced that the re-exam would be scheduled for June 21.
In fact, the cancellation has had a major impact on the students' mental health, with at least four of them dying by suicide over the past few days due to family pressure, exam stress, the dismay over the cancellation, and other tragic reasons.
Case progress so far
After whistleblower Shashikant Suthar plunged the nation into shock by exposing the scam just hours after the exam had taken place on May 3, the investigation was first handled by a Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police, after which it was handed over to the CBI.
The CBI has so far arrested nine people in the case, some of whom reach deep into the National Testing Agency (NTA) itself.
The prime accused so far is retired Chemistry professor P.V. Kulkarni, said to be one of the points of origin of the scam because of his access to the papers as an NTA insider on the paper-setting team.
Another prime accused is Botany lecturer Manisha Mandhare, who also had access to the papers as she was an NTA subject expert.
All three people have been linked to beautician Manisha Waghmare, another of the key accused responsible for trickling the "guess paper" down various channels and getting it to students.
While she was a close associate of Kulkarni, she also lived in the same society as Mandhare, but perhaps the most shocking twist here, as per the CBI's case reports so far, is the fact that it had been Mandhare who introduced the beautician to Kulkarni.
It is from Waghmare that the paper trickled down to the other accused such as Dhananjay Lokhande, Yash Yadav, and the Biwal family—along with the exchange of lakhs of rupees at various points—before finally making its way to a number of students.
The CBI, which is currently engaged in questioning the accused, has also placed the NTA panel under its lens. More arrests are expected soon, especially that of the unnamed NTA insider allegedly responsible for leaking the final question papers and answer keys for the May 3 exam in the last week of April.