Parties condole Pradeepa’s death, decry NEET

They also alleged that NEET was an instrument to snatch away the medical seats of state students especially the rural poor and demanded the scrapping of the test. Leader of Opposition MK Stalin rushed to the village to pay homage to the girl and meet her poor parents. He presented a cheque for Rs 2 lakh as solatium to Pradeepa’s father Shanmugam. 

Stalin pointed out that both Anitha and Pradeepa belong to poor and oppressed sections of society from rural areas and their suicides clearly prove that NEET was an weapon against social justice. 

MDMK general secretary Vaiko said the struggle for social justice would not stop till NEET which had snatched away the education rights of state and is fully scrapped. He also advised the students, who failed in NEET not to commit suicide. The poor results in Tamil Nadu were due to refusal of the Union Human Resources Minister to prepare NEET question papers based on state board syllabus. 

The second reason was the allocation of test centres in Kerala, Rajasthan and Andhra, he said. PMK founder S Ramadoss pointed out that states like Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Andhra and Delhi has the highest number of NEET coaching centres in the country. Party youth wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss said NEET had become an instrument to snatch away the medical education opportunities of the poor. 

DK president K Veeramani said Tamil Nadu had lost 1,450 medical seats to students of other states due to NEET. 

TNCC president Su Thirunavukkarasar asked the secular and democratic forces to unite and rescue the state from the injustice. He also asked the state to own responsibility for the death of Pradeepa and Anitha saying that SC/ST and OBC students were suffering due to unclear policy.