Delhi’s Jantar Mantar has been packed for days. So have street corners in Chennai and Bengaluru, where students, opposition leaders and a fast growing youth movement have all converged on a single demand, that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign.
At the centre of it sits an exam most people will have heard of but few outside India could actually explain. Here is what it is, what went wrong with it this year, and why that has turned into a national crisis.
What is NEET, and what does it stand for
NEET stands for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, India’s single national entrance exam for undergraduate medical education. Run once a year by the National Testing Agency, it is the only route into a recognised medical, dental or AYUSH college anywhere in the country.
Students who have completed Class 12 with physics, chemistry and biology sit the test, and their score decides admission to MBBS, BDS and courses such as BAMS, BUMS, BHMS and BSMS, spanning well over 150,000 seats nationally. Before 2013, students faced a patchwork of separate state and institutional entrance exams. NEET replaced all of that with one common standard, later formalised under the National Medical Commission Act of 2019.
That single point of entry is precisely why the exam carries so much weight. Medicine remains one of the most sought after career paths in India, offering both prestige and long term financial security, and there is no alternative door into it. When something goes wrong with the one exam that decides a student’s entire medical future, the reaction is rarely muted.
What went wrong with NEET this year
NEET UG 2026 was cancelled by the National Testing Agency nine days after it was conducted, following allegations of irregularities, and a re-examination had to be held weeks later. The exam was originally sat on May 3 by more than 22.7 lakh candidates across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad.
On May 12, the NTA scrapped the entire result and scheduled a re-examination for June 21. The government referred the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which has since registered a case and arrested 13 people. A second, separate controversy has also emerged around the CBSE On Screen Marking system used to evaluate the exam, adding fresh allegations on top of an already damaged process.
It is that combination, a cancelled national exam sat by over two million students, an active CBI probe, and new questions about how scripts were marked, that has turned routine student frustration into a full blown political crisis.
Who is the Cockroach Janta Party, and why is it leading the protests
The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, is a satirical youth movement founded in May 2026 that has grown into one of India’s largest protest movements in over a decade. It began after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant compared unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites of society during a Supreme Court hearing.
Abhijeet Dipke, a political communications strategist who had previously worked with the Aam Aadmi Party, responded within a day by founding the party, its name a pointed parody of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. What began as a joke went viral almost immediately, crossing 20 million Instagram followers within days, more than either the BJP or the Congress could claim, and drawing over 350,000 sign ups through a simple Google form.
That online momentum has translated into real numbers on the ground, with CJP volunteers turning out at Jantar Mantar and leading a march on Parliament on July 20. The NEET crisis became one of the causes the movement threw its weight behind, and its involvement helps explain why these protests have reached a scale that a purely academic grievance rarely achieves alone.
Who is Dharmendra Pradhan, and why do protesters want him to resign
Dharmendra Pradhan is India’s Union Education Minister, a senior BJP leader and the Lok Sabha MP for Sambalpur in Odisha, and the ministry he leads oversees the National Testing Agency responsible for NEET. That makes him the natural focal point for accountability once the exam collapsed. Protesters argue he bears political responsibility for both the original failure and the marking allegations that followed.
The pressure escalated sharply once activist Sonam Wangchuk began a hunger strike over the issue, a strike that had reached its 21st day when a group of senior academicians, economists and social activists wrote to Pradhan directly, urging him to resign on moral grounds and warning of the risk to Wangchuk’s health and that of other students fasting alongside him.
As of the most recent protests on July 21, Pradhan had not resigned, and no official inquiry has yet established the specific allegations being raised on the streets.
Who is Sonam Wangchuk, and why is he on hunger strike
Sonam Wangchuk is a Ladakh based engineer, education reformer and climate activist whose life story inspired the Aamir Khan character Phunsukh Wangdu in the 2009 Bollywood film ‘3 Idiots’. Born in 1966 near Alchi in Ladakh, he trained as an engineer before founding the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh in 1988, a school that reformed education for children failed by the conventional system, and he later won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2018 for that work.
Long before this year, Wangchuk had already built a reputation for using hunger strikes as a form of protest, including a 21 day fast in 2024 over Ladakh’s demand for statehood and constitutional protections. This year, he lent that same tactic to the NEET cause, joining the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest and beginning an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar.
By July 18, with the strike in its 21st day, Delhi Police moved him to VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi on medical advice following instructions from the Delhi High Court after concerns were raised about his health.
Why NEET provokes anger that runs deeper than one bad year
Even setting this year’s controversy aside, NEET has long been criticised for structurally disadvantaging rural, state board and non-English medium students. Its syllabus and question style have historically leaned toward the CBSE curriculum, leaving students taught under different state boards at a handicap through no fault of their own.
Competitive ranks increasingly depend on expensive private coaching, which narrows access toward families who can afford years of preparation.
Language has been a persistent flashpoint too, particularly in Tamil Nadu, where students from non-Hindi, non-English speaking backgrounds argue the exam disadvantages first generation learners, a grievance serious enough that the state government has repeatedly sought exemption from NEET altogether.
Indian media has also reported extensively on the psychological toll the exam takes on aspirants who see it as their only route into medicine. This year’s failures did not create that resentment. They simply reactivated it, at scale, all at once.
What happens next
With protests intensifying, a re-examination already conducted once this year, an active CBI investigation, and Wangchuk’s hunger strike now well into its third week, pressure on the education ministry shows no sign of easing. Whether that pressure eventually produces Pradhan’s resignation, a broader overhaul of how NEET is run, or neither, will likely only become clear in the weeks ahead.
Key takeaways
NEET is India’s sole national entrance exam for undergraduate medical education, and this year’s crisis stems from the cancellation and re-conduct of NEET UG 2026, an active CBI investigation, and fresh allegations about the CBSE marking system.
The protests demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation have been substantially amplified by the Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical youth movement that now counts more Instagram followers than India’s two largest political parties.
Beneath this year’s controversy sits a longer standing set of grievances about how NEET disadvantages rural, state board and non-English medium students.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. This piece touches on the emotional and psychological pressure NEET places on students, including references to student suicides reported in Indian media. This is a sensitive subject. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a trusted person or a helpline or the government’s helpline.
