If voted to power, will take a call on NEET: Kumaraswamy

Bengaluru: Former Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Thursday said if his party, JD(S) is voted to power in 2023 assembly elections, his government will pass a resolution in the state legislature against the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

The debate on NEET started after the death of Naveen Shekarappa Gyanagoudar, the Karnataka student who was pursuing medicine course in Ukraine and died in Russian shelling. Student's father Shekarappa said that under the present system, his son could not get a medical seat in the state and had to go to Ukraine to study medicine, where the cost is affordable.

"We oppose NEET. It is a trap to suffocate students and fill somebody else's coffers. We will end it. Is it being treacherous to question NEET? I don't know how to react to the statement of Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan," he said.

Ashwath Narayan had said that those who oppose NEET are traitors and money-minded. "He should clarify who he was referring to when he made the statement," Kumaraswamy said.

"I am not running either a medical college or an engineering college. I don't even run a small scale industry. I don't have anything other than Bidadi farmland. One of the Union Ministers has insulted the students who went abroad to study MBBS by stating that they have gone there as they could not crack entrance test here. Now, the state Higher Education Minister has gone one step ahead and labelled them as traitors and showed his true colours," he maintained.