ISLAMABAD: India's leader of the opposition declared Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "destroyed the entire education system," after a fourth major national examination in weeks collapsed into chaos – this time a university entrance test affecting hundreds of thousands of students across the country.
"NEET. CBSE. SSC. And today, CUET. Four exams. One crore [ten million] students. Not even one was conducted honestly," Rahul Gandhi wrote on X. He is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) and serves as Leader of the Opposition in lower house of Indian Parliament.
He added: "The generation whose future you are ruining will hold you accountable."
The immediate trigger was the Common University Entrance Test, known as CUET, which broke down Saturday morning at centers in Delhi and Bengaluru when the digital systems managed by the technology firm Tata Consultancy Services failed, according to the National Testing Agency, the federal body that administers the exam.
Students were stranded outside halls for hours. Afternoon sessions were pushed back.
But the CUET failure landed on top of a much larger wound.
On May 12, the testing agency canceled the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) the country's only gateway to medical school, nine days after 2.3 million students sat for it. Investigators had confirmed the question paper was leaked and sold through WhatsApp and Telegram before the exam began, according to The Hindu. The Central Bureau of Investigation is now pursuing suspects across multiple states.
Before that, India's premier secondary board, the CBSE, acknowledged that its new digital answer-sheet evaluation system had mixed up papers between students, left thousands of sheets unreadable, and crashed when students tried to access results online, according to The Times of India.
The Staff Selection Commission, which recruits for federal government jobs, had already drawn mass protests in mid-2025 after server failures and exam cancellations with no advance notice, per The Hindu.
Rahul has made examination integrity a signature issue since 2024, when a similar NEET paper leak first put the testing agency under national scrutiny. He has repeatedly stated that the Narendra Modi-led government has been tolerating what he calls an "education mafia" – criminal networks that sell question papers to wealthy families while students from poor backgrounds lose everything.
Private medical colleges in India charge tuition exceeding the equivalent of $100,000, placing them beyond reach for most families, according to Al Jazeera. A subsidized government seat through NEET is for many the only path into medicine. Families routinely sell land and take on debt to fund years of private coaching.
Al Jazeera documented several student suicides following the NEET cancellation. One involved a 21-year-old from Rajasthan whose father, a laborer, had sold ancestral land to pay for three years of coaching. The student had scored above 650 (enough for a government seat) before the exam was voided. His father told Al Jazeera the family considered it "a systemic killing caused by negligence and failure."
The Indian Supreme Court, hearing petitions from medical associations, described the failures as "very traumatic" and cited persistent "ad-hocism" inside the testing agency, per The Times of India.
The court noted the government had promised in a 2024 affidavit to build a "robust examination process" insulated from criminal interference before canceling the exam entirely two years later.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has faced resignation demands from Congress workers in multiple states. He previously told Indian Parliament there had been "no evidence of paper leaks in the last seven years," according to The Wire, a statement the opposition continues to invoke.
Rahul’s post on Saturday ended with a direct warning to the Indian prime minister: "Claims to be a 'world leader,' but can't even conduct a single exam in the country."
