NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the CBSE debacle and inaction against the education minister showed he cared only about the survival of his government and not the future of lakhs of students.
In a post on X, Gandhi said he had been demanding an independent judicial probe from day one into the CBSE’s on-screen marking and the award of the contract to COEMPT as the youth of the country deserved to know the truth.
Gandhi shared media reports and called upon people to read them carefully.
“CBSE called for OSM tenders thrice. Zero bids the first time. No qualified bidder the second time. And finally, the technical bar was lowered until COEMPT could clear it. Scanning resolution cut. Robotic scanner requirement dropped. CMMI certification lowered from Level 5 to Level 3. Penalties for errors in answer sheets removed.
“TCS, India’s biggest IT services company, qualified in the third round too. TCS lost. COEMPT – a company with a spectacular track record of failure – won. And what are CBSE students complaining about today? Badly scanned answer sheets. Missing pages. A broken evaluation portal,” he said.
Gandhi said teachers had warned the CBSE that the OSM system needed at least a year or two for further preparation before nationwide implementation, yet it was rushed through.
“So I ask again – who wanted COEMPT to win? Who lowered the bar, step by step, until this company could clear it? “Pradhan ji and CBSE say “due process was followed.” That is not an answer, that is not accountability. The question is whether the contract was honestly awarded to the best company which could do the job correctly,” the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
He said the futures of 18.5 lakh children were handed to a company that could only qualify after the rules were “bent” for it.
“To the BJP ministers attacking me for asking questions – I have, from day one, demanded an independent judicial probe. Expand it from CBSE to every contract awarded to COEMPT. Our youth deserve the truth.
“And Modi ji, your silence on the CBSE debacle and inaction against the Education Minister tells the country what you actually care about – not the futures of lakhs of students, only the survival of your own government,” Gandhi said.
The Congress leader also shared a video of his earlier interaction with students who had taken the NEET exam and expressed their concerns over the exam system in the wake of the paper leak.
In another post on X, Gandhi said, “One thing became absolutely clear during my meeting with NEET students – India’s youth no longer trusts Narendra Modi. They told me – question papers are being openly sold on WhatsApp and Telegram. They know the prices at which they’re being sold, who’s buying them, how the mafia operates – all of this is known to these kids.”
He said they had just one question. “If we know this, why doesn’t the government and the institutions? The truth is, these kids understand better than the government itself how this rotten system can be fixed.”
“And on the other hand, how shameful it is that the army, whose job it is to protect the country from enemies, is today being deployed by the Modi government to save children’s papers from its own corruption,” the Congress leader said.
“Patchwork fixes won’t cut it anymore. The entire examination system will have to be rebuilt from scratch, in collaboration with students, teachers, and experts. We can’t lose any more children. And we can’t leave even one generation’s future in the hands of this corrupt system,” Gandhi said in his post.
Another Congress leader Jairam Ramesh cited media reports and said they uncovered that the CBSE kept diluting the technical conditions in its Request for Proposals (RFPs) from contractors providing the on-screen marking (OSM) system for Class 12 board examinations this year.
He listed several concerns of students.
“The final RFP was issued only in August 2025, six months before the CBSE Grade 12 Board Exams. We already know that in the haste to roll out the OSM, the CBSE Board’s wise suggestion to conduct pilots at the regional centres was ignored.
“Clearly, the CBSE’s actions were characterised by an undue haste and an attempt to dilute quality and student-centric provisions to ensure that OSM is adopted by this year.
“Several questions emerge ‘“ Why were the technical conditions in the RFP weakened? Was this done at the instance of the contractors who were bidding for the tender? Why did the CBSE weaken provisions that would have minimised errors and supported students and evaluators (higher scanning resolution, penalties for wrongly scanned copies, etc)? What constraints or pressures was it responding to?” he asked in his post.
Ramesh also asked what was the reason for the haste in adopting OSM without the due diligence of regional pilots and at the cost of diluting the technological infrastructure.
“Were background checks done on COEMPT, the company which was eventually given the contract by CBSE? Did the CBSE ever consider the fact that COEMPT was previously called Globarena and mired in controversies? Or was there pressure from the Modi Government’s political masters to ensure the contract went to COEMPT? “The CBSE must come clean and release all documents relating to the choice of vendors, the modifications in the RFP, the reasons for the haste in adopting OSM, and the minutes of board meetings conducted in the run-up to the examinations. Perhaps the Mantri Pradhan can answer these questions instead of mudslinging and politicking,” the Congress leader said.
PTI
PM only cares about survival of his govt, not kids’ future: Rahul
