The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Union government to abolish the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduate medical admissions and allow the state to admit students based on their Class 12 marks, The Hindu reported.

NEET is currently mandatory for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India.

The lone Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, M Bhojarajan, opposed the resolution and walked out before the vote.

Moving the resolution, Health Minister KG Arunraj urged the Union government to amend the 2019 National Medical Commission Act, the 2020 National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act and the 2020 National Commission for Homoeopathy Act to enable admissions based on Class 12 results.

The resolution said that Tamil Nadu had consistently opposed NEET on grounds of social justice, equality and the rights of states in a federal system. It also said repeated question-paper leaks and other irregularities had further undermined confidence in the examination.

It also referred to the cancellation of the 2026 undergraduate medical admission exam and the subsequent re-examination, saying the developments had caused “untold mental agony” to lakhs of students and resulted in the loss of young lives.

“The examination has forfeited the trust of the students of this country,” The Hindu quoted the resolution as saying.

This came amid an ongoing anti-NEET hunger strike in Chennai, which entered its 11th day on Tuesday, Deccan Herald reported. Four persons are taking part in the indefinite fast, which is being organised by S Manirathnam, brother of S Anitha, a Tamil Nadu student who had sought admission to medical college based on her Class 12 marks and died by suicide in 2017 after failing to secure a medical seat through NEET.

The protesters are demanding that the Assembly pass a fresh resolution seeking the abolition of NEET, Deccan Herald reported.

Tamil Nadu has previously also sought exemption from NEET under the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government. Chief Minister Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam is in power in the state now.

In 2017, the state passed two bills seeking an exemption from the examination, but the president withheld assent to both in September that year. In 2021, the Assembly passed the Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, proposing that medical admissions be based on Class 12 marks instead of NEET.

RN Ravi, the governor at the time, returned the bill for reconsideration in February 2022. The Assembly passed it again and sent it for presidential consideration.

In June 2024, the Assembly unanimously passed another resolution urging the Centre to scrap NEET nationally and approve Tamil Nadu’s exemption bill. However, in April 2025, President Droupadi Murmu withheld assent to the bill.

In November, the Tamil Nadu government approached the Supreme Court, challenging the president’s decision.

The resolution adopted on Tuesday does not itself exempt students in Tamil Nadu from NEET. Any change to the existing admission system would require the necessary legal and constitutional process at the national level.

The Tamil Nadu government has repeatedly contended that the medical entrance examination violates federalism by taking away the states’ power to admit students to medical colleges.

The state has also argued that the NEET question paper is based on the Central Board of Secondary Education syllabus, which differs from the Tamil Nadu state board’s academic curriculum.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.

Also read: Why Tamil Nadu’s attempt to repeal NEET might be an uphill task

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