Will PM speak on his responsibility for UGC-NET retest, questions Congress

The Congress on Monday criticised the Centre after the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced that three papers from the UGC-NET June 2026 examination would be conducted again, questioning why candidates should suffer because of failures in the examination system.

Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said the NTA had acknowledged errors in the English, Commerce and Sociology papers nearly two months after the examination was held.

In a post on X, Ramesh said the papers contained factual, typographical and translation errors. These included misspelt names of prominent scholars, distorted book titles, poorly framed questions, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, errors in gender and number agreement, and the use of non-standard terms for established concepts.

He added that the committee appointed by the NTA had also found that several questions had been repeated from previous examinations.

The Congress leader questioned why candidates should be penalised for the agency’s mistakes and whether such serious problems should have taken nearly two months to detect.

“How will the losses be compensated — and by whom — for students who may miss admission to university programmes this academic year because of the delay?” he asked.

Ramesh said the controversy was not limited to the decision to conduct a retest but also raised questions about how papers containing extensive errors had been prepared and approved for a national examination affecting the careers of lakhs of young people.

He also sought an explanation for the delay in declaring the results of candidates who had appeared for the other 84 subjects.

“For those who took the examination in June, everyday matters,” Ramesh said, pointing out that Junior Research Fellowship awards, eligibility for assistant professor positions and admission to PhD programmes depended on the results.

Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he asked whether the Prime Minister would speak about his own responsibility for the problems faced by candidates. “The youth of the country demands answers,” he said.

The NTA on Sunday announced that the English and Commerce papers would be held again on 9 September. The English examination will take place from 9 am to noon, while the Commerce paper will be conducted from 3 pm to 6 pm.

The Sociology retest has been scheduled for 10 September from 9 am to noon. Candidates will not be required to pay an additional examination fee.

The UGC-NET June 2026 examination was conducted between 22 and 30 June across 87 subjects. It determines eligibility for the Junior Research Fellowship, appointment as assistant professor and admission to PhD programmes.

According to the NTA, a committee constituted after it received several complaints concluded that the defects in the three papers compromised the fairness and accuracy of the examination. The panel found that the problems were too extensive to be addressed merely by removing disputed questions after the challenge process and recommended that the papers be conducted again.

With PTI inputs