Congress steps up attack on NTA over UGC-NET retest, seeks white paper on cancelled exams

The Congress on Monday (August 17, 2026) stepped up its attack on the National Testing Agency over its decision to re-conduct the UGC-NET examination for three subjects, demanding accountability for what it termed “serious” lapses in the examination system and a white paper on 15 major examinations cancelled or postponed by the agency.

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The party’s latest attack comes ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) gathering on Wednesday (August 19, 2026), where expanding the party’s engagement with students and youth through the “Chhatron Ki Goonj” (Voice of Students) campaign is expected to be a key agenda. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to hold his next student interaction in Pune on August 22.

The CWC is also anticipated to discuss preparations for the next round of Assembly elections, including in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab, besides the party’s campaign on the alleged theft of offerings at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh questioned why candidates should bear the consequences of errors in a national-level examination. “Why should the country’s students bear the punishment for NTA’s mistakes?” he asked in a post on X.

According to The NTA has, it will re-conduct the UGC-NET examinations held in June 2026 for English, Commerce and Sociology on September 9 and 10 following complaints concerning errors in the question papers. The agency said a committee had identified factual, typographical and translation errors, including misspelt names of scholars, garbled book titles, grammatical and punctuation errors, non-standard terminology and repetition of a significant number of questions asked in earlier examinations.

The agency said the defects were extensive enough to render the papers inconsistent with the standards of a fair and error-free examination and could not be addressed merely by dropping questions. No additional examination fee will be charged for the retest.

Mr. Ramesh also questioned the delay in identifying the errors, pointing out that the examination was held in June. He said results for candidates who appeared in the other 84 subjects were additionally being delayed, potentially affecting admissions, Junior Research Fellowships (JRF), eligibility for assistant professorship and Ph.D. admissions.

At a press conference, Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib and Chayanika Uniyal, a faculty member of Delhi University who is associated with the Congress, demanded that the government explain the NTA’s functioning and sought a white paper covering major examinations cancelled or postponed since its establishment.

Ms. Uniyal also demanded a financial audit of the agency.

The Youth Congress chief also sought reimbursement of travel and accommodation expenses for candidates appearing in the retest and compensation for those who may have missed JRF or Ph.D. deadlines as of the delay. He also demanded that examination application forms be produced available for a nominal fee of ₹1.

The UGC-NET examination was conducted from June 22 to 30 across 87 subjects for the award of JRFs, ascertaining eligibility for Assistant Professor posts and admission to Ph.D. programmes. The NTA said re-conduct of the three papers was recommended by its committee in the interest of a fair and error-free examination.