Karnataka home minister Priyank Kharge of the Congress escalated his counter-attack on BJP MP Tejasvi Surya over three students missing the NEET-UG re-examination in Bengaluru, and challenged the central government to have Prime Minister Narendra Modi face students without a “curated” setting.
He also demanded the resignation of the chairperson of the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the medical entrance test NEET-UG, and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“I challenge you to put the Prime Minister for a ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’ along with Tejasvi Surya and all the students. You think the students are going to talk to them in a curated fashion?” Kharge said while speaking to reporters, referring to PM Modi’s recurring interactions with students before exams.
Kharge also suggested Surya's outburst was driven by personal ambition within the BJP. “He just does things to please his bosses. I think he is looking for a ministerial berth in the imminent (Union) cabinet reshuffle,” he said.
What Surya alleged
The remarks came after Surya, the Bengaluru South MP, targeted the Congress for scheduling its 'Sankalpa Samavesha' — the charge-taking event for new Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president BK Hariprasad — at Palace Grounds on the same day as the NEET re-examination, which was held as the original exam on May 3 was cancelled following a paper leak.
{{/usCountry}}The remarks came after Surya, the Bengaluru South MP, targeted the Congress for scheduling its 'Sankalpa Samavesha' — the charge-taking event for new Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president BK Hariprasad — at Palace Grounds on the same day as the NEET re-examination, which was held as the original exam on May 3 was cancelled following a paper leak.
{{/usCountry}}Surya alleged in a post on X that “massive traffic disruptions choked Bengaluru” and that many students reached examination centres in panic, with authorities giving some of them compensatory time.
Kharge, however, characterised this as “half-truths and manufactured outrage”, and called Surya a “serial misinformation MP” without naming him directly.
How Kharge responded
The Congress leader said that of 720 students allotted Government Ramnarayan Chellaram College as their examination centre, 142 were absent overall.
Of the three who missed the exam, one travelling from Magadi could not board a bus on time and reached late; another arrived with an old hall ticket from the May 3 examination and was not permitted to write the re-test; and the third came late from the RT Nagar side, with the exact reason still being ascertained, Kharge claimed.
“Can I be held responsible for a student who has not taken the right hall ticket? Can I be held responsible for one of the students who did not take the right bus from Magadi?" he said, adding the government remained sympathetic but would not accept political blame.
He cited other states too. “If the Congress government has to be blamed here for three students not writing NEET, then in Delhi, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh also people missed it — so those respective governments are responsible,” Kharge said.
In a further argument over alleged bias in seeking accountability, Kharge cited a January 2026 ruling in which a consumer court ordered Indian Railways to pay ₹9.1 lakh in compensation after a student from Uttar Pradesh missed an entrance exam because a train arrived in Lucknow two and a half hours late.
“Did Surya ask for Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation then?" Kharge said.
“In the last decade alone, 89 paper leaks have happened. Has Mr Surya or any of the MPs come out in favour of students” he asked further, adding that by Surya's logic, Modi and Pradhan “must be held directly responsible for the paper leaks, student distress and deaths and must be thrown out of office”.
On traffic being blamed, Kharge defended the government's preparation, and cited general, known issues.
“Bengaluru always has a huge mobility problem. That is a known fact. That is why we have issued a traffic advisory. You should blame us if we had not issued one,” he said, adding there was also a dedicated helpline and that thousands of students had written the exam.
“Yes, even one person missing out is a bad thing. It's unfortunate. But if you want to play politics, we are ready for that also. First, you apologise for the leaks. First, you make the NTA chairperson and Dharmendra Pradhan resign. Then you come and talk to me,” he said, as per news agency ANI.
Kharge also took a swipe at Surya over a 2022 incident aboard an IndiGo flight. “Unfortunately for the empty trunk MP, there are no emergency exits here for him to open and escape through after making a baseless allegation,” he said. The remark was an apparent reference to an episode in which Surya, seated in the emergency exit row on a flight in 2022, accidentally unhinged the aircraft's emergency door handle while boarding, grounding the plane for safety checks and delaying the flight by two hours. Surya had subsequently apologised for the incident.
The Congress convention, which Surya blamed for traffic snarls, drew thousands of party workers from across Karnataka.
The examination centre at RC College is located approximately three kilometres from the convection venue at Palace Grounds.
The NEET-UG re-examination, conducted across 5,440 centres in 551 cities, had originally been held on May 3 but was cancelled after an alleged question paper leak. Over 22 lakh students sat for it across India.