New Delhi: The cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 Tuesday drew a political offensive from opposition parties, which accused the BJP-led central government of presiding over a culture of examination corruption and failing to act on warnings sounded after previous paper-leak scandals.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) announced earlier in the day that it had cancelled the undergraduate medical entrance examination after receiving inputs about possible malpractice. About 22.79 lakh candidates appeared for the paper, held on 3 May. A fresh date for re-examination will be announced, it said.
Leading the opposition charge, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi called the leak “a crime against the future of the youth” and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Amrit Kaal (golden age)” had turned into a “poison era”.
“The hard work, sacrifices, and dreams of more than 22 lakh students have been crushed by this corrupt BJP regime. Now, lakhs of students will once again endure the same mental stress, financial burden, and uncertainty. If one’s destiny is determined not by hard work but by money and connections, then what meaning will education hold,” Gandhi questioned on X.
NEET 2026 की परीक्षा रद्द हो गयी।
22 लाख से ज़्यादा छात्रों की मेहनत, त्याग और सपनों को इस भ्रष्ट भाजपाई व्यवस्था ने कुचल दिया।
किसी पिता ने कर्ज़ लिया,
किसी माँ ने गहने बेचे,
लाखों बच्चों ने रात-रात भर जागकर पढ़ाई की,
और बदले में मिला, पेपर लीक, सरकारी लापरवाही और शिक्षा में…
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 12, 2026
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal called the alleged paper leak the “biggest betrayal”.
“Those who cannot prevent paper leak, how would they run the government? It’s a case of complete collusion,” Kejriwal said at a press conference in New Delhi Tuesday afternoon.
Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose accused the government of “throwing students’ lives into disarray and anxiety”.
“No governance and zero accountability of incompetent, useless Modi government; only mindlessly promoting itself, incapable of daily administration,” she posted on X.
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram took aim at the Prime Minister’s ‘Pariksha pe Charcha’ initiative—an annual event at which the PM counsels students, parents and teachers on managing examination pressure—with a question posted on X: “No Pariksha pe charcha now?”.
AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) chief Asaduddin Owaisi, at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, turned his sights on the PM’s Mann Ki Baat radio programme. “Where is the PM’s Mann Ki Baat now? What will the PM say to the students now—students who have been preparing for the last few years and parents who spend lakhs on coaching? The BJP must answer. The PM can hold another Mann Ki Baat but that will not help,” he said.
In continuation of its press release dated 10 May 2026, the National Testing Agency wishes to inform candidates, parents, and members of the public of the following decisions taken in respect of NEET (UG) 2026. NTA had, on 8 May 2026, referred the matters then under consideration…
— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) May 12, 2026
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha, who had earlier raised questions over the NTA’s lack of transparency and accountability, went further, demanding that the testing body be dismantled altogether in the wake of the cancellation.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said the cancellation was the continuation of an unbroken pattern.
“Every year the same pathetic shameful story of paper leak. The government continues to abdicate its responsibility towards the students and their future,” she said on X.
“The students and parents had erupted in protest and the government had assured them of strict accountability and punishment. The minister continued in his position without any sense of responsibility. Cut to 2026, 23 lakh students left in the lurch due to a pathetic NTA and even pathetic leadership that has gotten away with paper leak again. Shameful,” the former MP said.
2024- NEET UG paper leak, protests, matter reached Supreme Court
2025 – UGC Guidelines, protests, matter in Supreme Court
2026 – NEET UG paper leak again, students upset, Exam rescheduled.
NTA: Irresponsible
Education Minister : Unchanged
Accountability: Zero pic.twitter.com/YtjmTLijS9
— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) May 12, 2026
The opposition broadside had begun a day before NTA cancelled the paper.
On Monday, as reports of the leak first surfaced, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra both went on the offensive. Kharge claimed at least four NEET papers had leaked since 2016 and accused the Centre of “protecting the paper-leak mafia”.
Priyanka Gandhi said recurring corruption in examinations under BJP rule was “robbing the country’s youth of their future” and questioned the efficacy of the government’s anti-paper leak law, enacted in 2024.
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan declined to take questions from the media when approached after an event on Tuesday afternoon.
Congress’s youth wing, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), and Left-aligned Students’ Federation of India (SFI) protested in the national capital Tuesday.
Former NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) director J.S. Rajput called for structural reform but cautioned against reducing the crisis to a partisan issue. “The issue needs to be resolved professionally, academically and socially rather than politically,” he told ThePrint.
He added, “I feel ashamed to see the state of our education system, this has been happening over the last few decades; if the government would have taken action in the initial years things would have been different.”
The Coaching Federation of India also weighed in, slamming the NTA for what it described as “the system that failed the students”.
Keshav Agarwal, the federation’s vice-president, said the damage could not be repaired by rescheduling alone. “You can reschedule an exam. You cannot reschedule the faith a child loses in the system that was supposed to protect them; these students didn’t fail, the system failed them. And now we are asking the victim to prove themselves again,” he said.
Also Read: What we know about NEET (UG) ‘leak’—PDF that got 120 of 180 questions right, Nashik student detained