Chennai, Aug 31:
A young medical aspirant girl, who could not get a MBBS seat even after clearing the NEET exams, committed suicide at Palayamkottai in the southern Tirunelveli district, even as Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) President and Lok Sabha MP B.Manickam Tagore expressed anguish and urged the Centre to completely scrap the exams taking into account the sentiments of the students of the state.
In a post on X, Tagore expressed deep anguish over the death of Sruthilaya, a student from Palayamkottai in Tirunelveli, who could not get a meedical seat during counselling.
He said she had taken the extreme step due to mental distress over not getting a medical seat despite clearing the NEET exam.
“Losing a young daughter who worked hard with the dream of becoming a doctor is an unbearable tragedy,” Tagore said, while conveying his condolences to the student’s family.
Party Tirunelveli Lok Sabha MP C.Robert Bruce and Congress functionaries would meet the family and offer their condolences, the TNCC Chief said and highlighted what he described as the widening gap between the number of students aspiring to pursue medicine and the number of available medical seats in the state.
Quoting statistics, he said more than 7.5 lakh students clear the Class 12 board examinations in the state every year and lakhs among them, who aspire to become doctors, appear for NEET. However, the total number of medical seats available in Tamil Nadu was only 13,999.
Pointing out that the number of students who cleared NEET in the State declined from 76,181 in 2025 to 61,306 in 2026, a significant and severe reduction of 19.5%, he said the reduction in about 15,000 students only reflected the growing disillusionment among them and they losing complete faith in the NEET exams.
Seeking to know when there would be an end to destroying the lives and dreams of TN students due to the NEET, Tagore said henceforth no student’s life should be lost due to NEET.
Blaming the indifferent attitude and adamant stand of the Centre for the student suicides, despite Tamil Nadu consistently fighting against NEET, the TNCC Chief said the Modi government and union Education Minister Prahlad Joshi should immediately stop playing with the future of the students, respect the sentiments of the state and its students and abolish the NEET exams in toto.