Siddu backs NEET student protesters, slams Modi

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday threw high weight behind students protesting against the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET).

The CM accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ignoring the plight of the attendees of the NEET exam, which was conducted on May 4. The students have alleged that results were manipulated.

Among the questions raised is the emergence of 67 toppers, who all scored a perfect 720 in the exam, which is highly unusual. In 2023, the number of toppers had been two and in 2022, it had been four.

What’s more is that six of the toppers attended the test at the same examination centre. Moreover, the second spot was secured by two students who scored 719, which also raised eyebrows.

This is because each correctly answered question in NEET earns one four marks while an incorrect answer earns one minus one mark. Therefore, if a student gets one answer wrong, he’ll earn a score of 715 marks and if one doesn’t answer the question, he’ll get 716 marks.

The National Testing Agency claims that the discrepancy was because of grace marks awarded because of wasted time due to 45 minutes owing to the distribution of wrong question papers. Critics claim that the methodology behind the awarding of the grace marks is unclear.

They want to know how many grace marks would be awarded to how much lost time. Protesting students alleged that the results date for NEET was advanced from June 14 to June 4 to bury the controversy.