NTA makes mistake, students pay the price: Rahul Gandhi slams UGC-NET retest

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Monday launched a scathing attack on the government and the National Testing Agency after three UGC-NET papers were cancelled and rescheduled, saying students were being made to pay for the exam body's mistakes.The UGC-NET June 2026 papers for English, Commerce and Sociology, conducted between June 22 and 30, will now be held again in September after the NTA found multiple errors in the question papers, including factual, typographical and translation mistakes and the repetition of questions from previous examinations."Modi ji, look at what your NTA has just done," Gandhi said in a post on X, questioning why thousands of candidates who had spent months preparing for the examination would have to appear again because of errors made by the testing agency."Thousands of candidates who prepared for years, filled out forms, paid the fees, travelled to distant centres, must now do it all again in September. NTA makes the mistake, but the student serves the sentence," he said. The Congress leader also questioned whether the errors in the papers were the only issue that needed to be investigated, asking whether the question papers had been leaked before the examination. "NTA still won't answer the real question — were these papers leaked before the exam?" Gandhi said.The NTA announced the retest after a committee examined complaints received about the three papers.According to the agency, the panel found misspelt names of scholars, garbled book titles, errors in question wording, grammatical and translation mistakes, punctuation errors and non-standard terminology.A significant number of questions were also found to have been repeated from earlier examinations.The agency said the defects were extensive enough that they could not be addressed simply by deleting faulty questions after the challenge process. It therefore decided to conduct fresh examinations to ensure a fair and error-free test.The English and Commerce papers will be re-conducted on September 9, while the Sociology paper will be held on September 10.Candidates appearing for the retest will not have to pay an additional examination fee.Gandhi said the episode reflected deeper problems with the country's examination system and accused the government of failing to take responsibility when students suffer because of administrative lapses."I said this in Kota, in Dehradun, in Prayagraj, and I will keep saying it — this is no longer an education system. It is an extraction machine. It takes your money, your years, your mental health, and your confidence and returns nothing. Not even a job," he said.He also demanded accountability from the NTA leadership and linked the issue to his broader criticism of the government's handling of examination-related controversies."Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation was the first step, not the last. NTA's leadership must be held accountable too," Gandhi said.The Congress leader said candidates appearing for the retest should not be blamed for the disruption and accused the government of taking away valuable time from young people."To every student sitting this exam again in September — you are not the problem," he said, adding that the government had created a system that could not conduct an error-free examination and then left students to bear the consequences.The UGC-NET June 2026 examination was conducted across 87 subjects to determine eligibility for Junior Research Fellowship, assistant professorship and PhD admissions.The NTA said results for the remaining 84 subjects would be declared as scheduled and that the allocation of seats would not be reduced because of the retest.- Ends(With PTI inputs)Published By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Aug 17, 2026 10:28 IST