Congress attacks PM Modi, ministers over CBSE, NEET row: ‘Mangoes, jaljeera discussed’ but no word on...

Congress leader Pawan Khera launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers for not saying a "single word" against the education system, amid controversies over the NEET, CBSE and CEUT-US exams recently.

He said, “I heard PM Modi's Mann Ki Baat episode yesterday, hoping that the Prime Minister would talk about the CBSE and NEET exam scams that have destroyed the future of many young people. But instead, he discussed the varieties of mangoes, the recipes of jaljeera, and the need to drink water during summers.”

Khera also urged people to compare "the Prime Minister's daily social media posts and public statements with what Rahul Gandhi has been saying over the past week or ten days."

"You will then begin to wonder: Does the country deserve this man as a Prime Minister?" he asked, adding, "Is this what the Prime Minister of India is supposed to do in the midst of a crisis that our younger generation is facing? "

The Congress leader also hit out at the ministers, saying, "Take a look at the posts or tweets of ministers in the Modi government—no one has uttered a single word in condemnation of the education system or CBSE."

"Meanwhile, when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was asked about the paper leak, he says—Rahul Gandhi is Frustrated," Khera said in the press conference on Monday.

Congress' 5 question to Modi govt

He further raised five questions before the government over the CBSE exam controversy. They were as follows:

1. "Experts and teachers had pointed out the flaws in the OSM system in 36 points—why did the Modi government ignore it?"

2. "On whose orders did the Modi government relax the tender conditions?"

3. "Why did you change the rules to benefit one company?"

4. "What is the relationship between COEMPT company and BJP that it was given priority over TCS?"

5. "Why is the Modi government pushing the country's education system backwards?"

Explaining the issue, Kera said, "In the past, students' answer sheets used to go to the examiner in CBSE, where they would be checked, but then this system was changed."

"Now, answer sheets are scanned and uploaded to the portal. A system was created for this, and a company was hired to start the process," he added.

He said that in the first round of bidding, TCS came forward. "But since there was only one company, no tender process took place," he said.

"In such a situation, another round of tender happened in August 2025, in which COEMPT company qualified and came forward. However, the rules were changed to award the tender to COEMPT company, so that it could secure the contract," Khera alleged.

Khera also claimed that the share of education in the budget has been reduced by 50% by the Modi government. "During the UPA-2 period, 4.77% of the budget was spent on education, but today only 2.50% is being spent," he said.

Khera urged people not to get “distracted”, he said, “This government keeps doing something or the other to distract us, and we all start discussing it. Therefore, I say to you: don't get distracted. Demand answers from Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the Modi government on NEET and CBSE.”

Earlier, Congress leader Jairan Ramesh hit out at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government over the CBSE OSM row, saying the "Pradhan Mantri" has never been known to hold himself or his colleagues to any standard of probity or morality but the "Mantri Pradhan" should follow his "rajdharma" and resign.

Ramesh shared a media report on X and said that after denying the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in its On Screen Marking (OSM) system for weeks, the CBSE has finally acknowledged that the system has been compromised.

But what action is it planning to take against its contractor COEMPT, he asked, adding, "not much".

It appears that the COEMPT's benefactors in the CBSE and the Ministry of Education anticipated that COEMPT would not be fit for the task, he said.