"Govt will not allow tampering with students' future": Chirag Paswan on CBSE evaluation row

New Delhi [India], May 26 (ANI): Amidst growing nationwide outrage over the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) new On-Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation process, Union Minister Chirag Paswan on Tuesday assured students and parents that the government is treating the matter with the highest priority.
Speaking to reporters on the ongoing controversy, where students have flagged issues ranging from mismatched answer sheets to technical glitches in the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, the Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Paswan stated that the Education Department is working "tirelessly" to resolve the crisis.
"The government will not allow any kind of tampering with the future of children," the Union Minister asserted. "A worrying situation has definitely arisen where concerns have been raised about the future of a large population of the country, and our government is responsible for resolving them."
Paswan further emphasised that the administration is committed to systemic improvements to prevent a recurrence of such issues. "Every step will be taken to strengthen this system for the future so that such incidents never occur again," he added.
The Minister's remarks come at a time when the CBSE is facing mounting pressure following reports of technical failures in its post-result portal and discrepancies in evaluated answer scripts .
Earlier today Congress leader Digvijay Singh raised serious concerns over the handling of the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak case, questioning the functioning of the Ministry of Education and the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Speaking on the NEET-UG 2026 controversy, Singh said the Ministry of Education's approach to the issue was "very impractical" and questioned the NTA's stand on the alleged paper leak.
This comes after NEET-UG 2026, which was conducted on May 3 by the NTA, was cancelled on May 12 following allegations of a coordinated paper leak.
"The issue is that the way the Ministry of Education is functioning is very impractical. Take the NEET matter, for instance; it is quite strange that while the entire country is saying there was a leak, the NTA claims no leak occurred. It's odd. Then why are they conducting a re-examination?" Singh said.
He also alleged a lack of transparency in the CBSE examination process and said students across the country were being unfairly affected by repeated "experiments" in evaluation systems.
Singh criticised the use of On-Screen Marking (OSM) in CBSE exams, saying the system had failed in the past and should not be imposed again on students nationwide."OSM was used once in 2014 and found to be impractical.
In 2017, Mumbai University also tried it, and it was deemed impractical. When it has already failed twice, why are you experimenting with CBSE students across the country? The scanned copies being provided now are unreadable," he said.
Referring to a student's complaint regarding answer sheet discrepancies, Singh said concerns raised by students were being ignored and politicised instead of being addressed.
"A student named Vedant had different handwriting on his physics paper, so his elder brother tweeted about it. Following that, the entire BJP targeted him, calling him 'Pakistani' and saying, 'send him to Pakistan'. What is this? Why are you being so unjust to the students?" he asked.
"I want to state very seriously that we have to ask why this happened, how it occurred, who the vendor was, how they were finalised, what the rates were, and who participated. These are all questions that have come to us from the public, and we will ask them," Singh said. (ANI)