Shillong: The NEET-UG 2026 scandal has derailed the ambitions of 22 lakh students nationwide. In Meghalaya, 4,164 candidates faced the fallout, forced to retake the exam at 14 centers this past Sunday. Despite the chaos, local public discourse remains eerily quiet.
The Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee broke that silence on Thursday. They demanded Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan step down immediately. The party claims the leak is "not an isolated incident but a symptom of deeper structural problems" within the national education system.
MPCC secretary Manuel Badwar pointed to a string of failures. The federal government lags on its commitment to spend six percent of GDP on education. Budget cuts hit the UGC and key programs like PM SHRI and Samagra Shiksha hard. Meanwhile, 8.46 lakh teaching positions sit vacant across the country.
Critics argue that centralizing testing under the National Testing Agency created a mess without accountability. The Congress party claims these policies push families toward expensive private coaching and widen the gap for poorer students. They are now calling for a full investigation, a total overhaul of the NTA, and an immediate push to fill empty classrooms.
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