Tamil Nadu: Reckless Interference Outcome

The political impasse in tamil Nadu following the sudden demise of former chief minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo J. Jayalalithaa on December 5, 2016, came to a dramatic end when former public works and highways minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy was sworn in as the chief minister on February 16. Two days later, Palanisamy won a vote of confidence in the state legislative assembly. Palanisamy was sworn in after a tense ten-day power struggle in the ruling AIADMK between party general secretary V.K. Sasikala and caretaker chief minister O. Paneerselvam. However, Sasikala’s dream of becoming chief minister was rudely shattered on February 14 when she was convicted by the Supreme Court in the well-publicised Rs.66-crore disproportionate assets case, and sentenced to four years imprisonment. Nevertheless, she brilliantly managed to stage the appointment of Palanisamy as her proxy chief minister and her nephew T.T.V. Dinakaran as the all-powerful deputy general secretary of AIADMK.  To counter simmering anger and popular resentment  against Sasikala and her proxy chief minister, the new AIADMK government has accelerated implementation of several of the late Jayalalithaa’s populist schemes. In particular, two Bills passed by the Tamil Nadu assembly on February 1 relating to the Supreme Court-mandated National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission into undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental colleges, have been sent to President Pranab Mukherjee for approval.  The two Bills — the Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS and Dental Courses Bill, 2017, and the Tamil Nadu Admission to Postgraduate Courses in Medicine and Dentistry Bill, 2017 — exempt state board school-leavers from writing NEET scheduled for May 7 this year. If approved by Mukherjee, the extant system of admitting students into the state’s 22 government, 13 private and ten deemed medical colleges/universities on the basis of their Plus Two scores will remain intact. In postgraduate programmes, preference will be given to students with a year’s service in rural Tamil Nadu. Buoyed by the success of amending the Central Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (1960) which exempts the annual jallikattu (bull running) sports jamboree from the ambit of the Act, the Palanisamy-led AIADMK government is determined to permanently exempt aspiring medicos in the state from writing NEET. Ever since the historic Supreme Court judgement of April 11, 2016, mandated NEET as the sole entrance exam for admission into all medical colleges countrywide, the AIADMK government and other political parties in the state have stridently protested it. There’s a political consensus that the apex court’s judgement dilutes the autonomy of the state government as it contradicts the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2006, which abolished common entrance examinations for all professional undergraduate courses to ensure students from rural areas equal opportunity to enter institutions of professional education, i.e. medical, engineering, business management colleges/universities. Since 2007, Tamil Nadu has been admitting students into undergraduate medical and dental courses based on their class XII marksheets.  According to medical practitioners and educationists in Chennai, the hasty enforcement of NEET has placed…