Modi-Shah duo accountable: Rahul meets bereaved kin of NEET aspirant

Congress MP and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday met the family of a NEET aspirant who died by suicide in Rajasthan’s Sikar and sought accountability from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah over the handling of the examination system.

The Lok Sabha LoP met the family of Pradeep Meghwal at the NSUI office in Jaipur and described the student’s death as the result of a “broken, corrupt system”.

In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said, “Today, I met the family of the brilliant student Pradeep Meghwal, who was so devastated by the NEET paper leak that he took his own life. Their pain cannot be contained in words. A mother and father have lost their son, and they were guilty of nothing.”

He said millions of students across the country were living under the burden of academic pressure, competition and uncertainty about their future.

“And when a paper leak happens, it's not just one exam that breaks — it's a child's dream, and an entire family that shatters. Pradeep's death was not suicide — it was the consequence of a broken, corrupt system,” Gandhi said.

Targeting the Centre, Gandhi alleged that responsibility lay with those who had allowed “mafias” to infiltrate the examination process. “Those who handed the examination system over to mafias, and who are still clinging to their chairs today — the Modi-Shah duo is accountable to this family,” he said.

According to police, Pradeep allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his room using his sister’s scarf. At the time of the incident, one of his sisters was attending coaching classes while another was in the bathroom.

Police said the student had appeared for NEET-UG 2026, the medical entrance examination held on 3 May, which was subsequently cancelled following allegations of a paper leak. The National Testing Agency (NTA) scrapped the examination and ordered a re-test after inputs from law enforcement agencies suggested the integrity of the exam process may have been compromised. A CBI probe into the alleged leak is underway.

The NEET-UG controversy has triggered nationwide protests and political sparring, with Opposition parties accusing the Centre and the National Testing Agency of failing to safeguard the integrity of one of India’s largest entrance examinations, taken annually by lakhs of medical aspirants.

With PTI inputs