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Why PM Modi ‘personally supervising’ NEET-UG is riddled with problems

How PM Narendra Modi, who has completed 12 years in office, goes from here would be keenly watched. It could give an inkling of his plans for 2029 and beyond.

Under fire from the Supreme Court over NEET-UG paper leak, the government told the apex court last week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “personally supervising” this issue.

This formulation is problematic on three counts, even as the prime minister maintains a studied silence on this issue.

First, it’s a rather predictable attempt to use PM Modi’s popularity and goodwill to counter what’s widely seen as a gross systemic failure. He may be coated with Titanium, but in politics, even super metals can corrode. There was a time when former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was called Teflon-coated, given his untainted personal integrity amid a flurry of scams in his government. But that personal image couldn’t make up for his government’s failures in the 2014 general elections. Three years later, his successor was taking a jibe at him in the Rajya Sabha:

“Dr. Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing with a raincoat on,” Modi said.

There is no comparison between the two, of course. The point here is that the UPA government’s failures ended up eroding Singh’s Teflon coating. Using PM Modi’s name to counter the public backlash over irregularities and lapses in examinations is, therefore, a desperate and risky strategy. Senior Congress leader and chairman of the parliamentary committee on education, Digvijaya Singh, said on Saturday that the Opposition was demanding education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation until now.

“If the paper is leaked under the PM’s watch, we will have to ask for the PM’s resignation,” he said.

The second problem with the government’s message on the NEET paper leak is that it would end up lending credence to the Opposition’s contention about........

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