Kolkata: Launching an attack against the Central government even as his party supports the amendment to the paper leak bill, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday said support for the bill cannot be a substitute for accountability.
Speaking in Lok Sabha during a debate on the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, Banerjee said every student deserves assurance that examinations should be fair and every parent deserves confidence that success is determined by hard work, talent, and integrity, not by money, influence, or organised criminal syndicates.
He added, “Support for this bill cannot be a substitute for accountability. A stronger law is necessary, yes, but by itself is not sufficient. If examinations continue to be compromised by systematic failures, no amendment, however stringent, will restore the faith that millions of students have lost.”
According to him, the bill is not a solution but an admission that the NDA and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have failed.
“It failed to protect examinations, it failed to protect the students, it failed to protect the merits. And today, after the failure exploded across the country, it wants Parliament to believe that increasing punishment will erase 12 years of incompetence. Well, it will not,” he said.
The Trinamool MP further said that governance is not done by headlines but is measured by outcomes.
“This government has mastered one art. Whenever governance fails, they change the law. Whenever administration collapses, they increase punishment. Whenever institutions fail, they announce another committee. But governance is not done by headlines. Outcomes measure governance,” he said.
Banerjee continued that every year the government promises a new system, but students face the same scandals.
“The names of examinations change. The names of victims change. The names of the accused change, but somehow the crime and the government never change,” he said.
Ridiculing the Centre, Banerjee said, “You say you can monitor satellites. The government says it can track missiles. The government says it can defend cyberspace, yet confidential examination papers seem to travel faster than it can detect. What does it say about the state of affairs of the current government?”
He also referred to the students’ protest in the national capital over the NEET-UG paper leak.
“Lakhs of students in different parts of the country, young boys and girls, medical aspirants, engineering aspirants, students whose only crime was to ask the government the right questions and who believed in merit. Instead of listening to them, what did they receive? Barricades, police lathi charge, pellets, guns, tear gas. This government seems to believe every protest is a conspiracy,” he said.
The Trinamool MP added, “Every student is an enemy. Every question is anti-national. When students ask for justice, why does the government first inflict brutality or resort to force instead of dialogue? Why are young Indians treated as a law and order problem instead of stakeholders?”
He concluded by saying, “The report card this generation is preparing for the incumbent and the Indian government will have only one word on the top: failed. Failed to protect the examination. Failed to protect merit. Failed to protect trust. Failed to protect dignity and honour.”
(IANS)
