NEET 2017: Bengal to write to CBSE to protest against tough paper

NEET 2017 was conducted in 10 languages

The West Bengal government on Monday said it will write to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to lodge a "strong protest" over the alleged "tough" questions in Bengali in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), conducted for admission to undergraduate medical courses in government and private medical colleges in the country.

Aspirants who had appeared for the test in Bengali on Sunday had alleged that the level of difficulty in the vernacular question paper was much higher than the questions framed in the English version.

NEET was conducted in 10 languages - English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada and Odiya.

"It was said that questions would be identical. But questions in Bengali were much tougher than the ones framed in English.A With the promise of identical question papers, they framed tough questions for the Bengali board students. The English paper was closer in format to that followed by CBSE. We are strongly protesting this," state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee told the media here.

The Central Board of Secondary Education organised NEET 2017 on Sunday in as many as 104 cities across the country, for which more than 11 lakh aspirants had registered.

Chatterjee accused the Centre of stifling the talent in Bengal.

"They also tried the same thing in engineering exams but we opposed it strongly. This is centre's tactic to deprive Bengal and neglect the talent of the State. Bengal cannot be deprived like this," he added.