Overview
- The Chhatron Ki Goonj campaign, which Rahul Gandhi launched in Kota on Thursday, is an online signature drive and outreach tour run by Congress youth wings to collect student grievances about exams and costs.
- Gandhi used the Kota rally to call India’s system a “rejection system” and displayed the suicide note of a NEET aspirant as he urged reforms to reduce mental‑health harms and exam pressure.
- He presented figures alleging families spend about Rs 1.32 lakh crore on NEET and Rs 3.5 lakh crore on five major exams, using those claims to compare private exam spending with government education budgets.
- Congress leaders escalated demands for accountability including calls to disband the National Testing Agency and for Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, while the BJP accused Gandhi of politicising the issue ahead of a scheduled NEET re‑exam.
- Coverage diverges on motive and impact: some outlets and party spokespeople frame the drive as grassroots student advocacy, others portray it as a partisan mobilisation to reclaim youth space from rival student movements.