Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday criticised the National Testing Agency (NTA) after it decided to re-conduct the UGC-NET examinations for English, Commerce and Sociology, saying students were being punished for mistakes made by the agency.
The three papers, held between June 22 and 30, were cancelled after an NTA-appointed committee found several errors, including factual, typographical and translation mistakes, as well as repeated questions from previous examinations.
‘NTA Makes the Mistake, Student Serves the Sentence’
Reacting to the decision, Gandhi directly targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a post on X.
“Modi ji, look at what your NTA has just done,” Gandhi said.
He said thousands of candidates who had spent months and years preparing for the examination would now have to repeat the process.
“Thousands of candidates who prepared for years, filled 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 examination papers had been leaked before the test.
“NTA still won’t answer the real question — were these papers leaked before the exam?” Gandhi said.
Rahul Gandhi Calls Exam System an ‘Extraction Machine’
Gandhi said the latest controversy reflected deeper problems with the country’s examination system.
“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 referred to former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.
“Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation was the first step, not the last. NTA’s leadership must be held accountable too,” Gandhi said.
He told candidates appearing for the September retest that they should not blame themselves for the disruption.
“To every student sitting this exam again in September — you are not the problem,” he said.
NTA Finds Errors in Three UGC-NET Papers
The NTA said a committee was formed after receiving complaints about the English, Commerce and Sociology papers.
The committee found misspelled names of scholars, distorted book titles, errors in question wording, grammatical and translation mistakes, punctuation problems and the use of non-standard terms. It also found a significant number of questions repeated from earlier examinations.
The agency said the errors were too extensive to be corrected simply by removing the affected questions and therefore recommended fresh examinations.
The English and Commerce papers will be held again on September 9, while the Sociology paper will be conducted on September 10. Candidates will not have to pay an additional examination fee.
Jairam Ramesh Questions Accountability
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also questioned why students should bear the consequences of errors committed by the examination agency.
He asked why it took nearly two months for the NTA to identify serious errors and how students would be compensated for losses caused by the delay, particularly those whose university admissions or academic opportunities could be affected.
“The question isn’t just why the exam is being held again. The question is how a question paper with such serious errors was prepared and approved in the first place,” Ramesh said.
The UGC-NET June 2026 examination was conducted across 87 subjects for eligibility for Junior Research Fellowship, assistant professorship and PhD admissions. The NTA said results for the remaining 84 subjects would be declared as scheduled.
