Chatron’s echo: Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday launched a major political attack on the Central Government from Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, regarding the paper leak cases that are continuously coming to light in competitive examinations. In the program ‘Students’ Echo’, he claimed that incidents of paper leaks in the country have affected about 7.5 crore students, but in the 152 cases reported so far, not a single culprit has been punished.
Rahul Gandhi said that crores of youth of India spend the most important years of their lives preparing for government jobs and competitive examinations, but paper leaks and corruption spoil their hard work. He called it not just a crisis of the examination system, but a question of the future of the young generation of the country and the credibility of the institutions.
‘Paper leak is no longer an exception, it has become a parallel industry’
In his address, Rahul Gandhi claimed that a complete “rate card” of paper leaks in the country has been prepared. He said that just like there is a menu card in a restaurant, in the same way the alleged price of question papers of different competitive examinations has been fixed.
According to him, allegations of NEET paper being sold for around Rs 40 lakh, IIT-JEE and Uttarakhand Patwari Recruitment exam paper for Rs 15 lakh each, Bihar Teacher Recruitment exam paper for Rs 10 lakh and Odisha Police Sub-Inspector exam paper for up to Rs 25 lakh have come to light. He said that these are only a few examples, whereas such incidents have been reported in almost every state.
‘5 years of hard work, expenditure of lakhs of rupees and then paper leaked’
Rahul Gandhi said that a student preparing for competitive exams, on an average, stays away from his normal life for 5 years and studies for 8 to 10 hours a day. During this period, a family spends up to Rs 9 lakh, which is often raised through savings and loans.
He said that out of 9 crore candidates in the country, only 6 lakh youth are able to get government jobs. That means only one out of 150 candidates is successful. In such a tough competition, if incidents like paper leak happen, then the biggest loss is to the honest students.
Advocating major changes in the examination system
Rahul Gandhi also raised questions on the autonomy of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and universities. He said that educational institutions and examination agencies should be kept free from any political influence.
He suggested that instead of conducting national level examinations on a single day across the country, they should be conducted in multiple phases using modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital security and randomization of question papers. He said that with this the chances of paper leak can be reduced to a great extent.
4 types of injustice being done to the youth
1. Cost of education Rs 9 lakh
2. Four out of five doors are closed
3. Only 1 student out of 150 is successful
4. Injustice of paper leak pic.twitter.com/8By2U9rhTn— Congress (@INCIndia) July 17, 2026
Political debate on paper leak increased across the country
Allegations of alleged paper leaks and irregularities in NEET, UGC-NET, Teacher Recruitment, Police Recruitment, Patwari Recruitment and other competitive examinations in recent years have raised serious questions on the examination system. The opposition is continuously demanding from the government effective implementation of examination security laws and prompt action against the culprits, while the central government says that many reforms are being made at the technical and legal level to make the examination process more secure.
After this statement of Rahul Gandhi, once again the political debate is likely to intensify in the country regarding the examination system, future of youth and transparency of the recruitment process.
