Rahul Gandhi on the Competitive Exam System: An "Extortion Machine"

Rahul Gandhi used that platform the first stop in this whole series of student conventions to really hammer home something about how messed up the system is. He called it a "rejection system," not a selection one, when talking about all the competitive exams out there.
He was at the “Chhatron Ki Goonj” rally in Kota on Wednesday. Thousands of job seekers and coaching students were there. And Gandhi wasn't just talking politics. He was pointing at how that whole educational framework is systematically crushing the dreams and mental health of the youth. Intense pressure, stress it’s all designed to crush them. It doesn't nurture anything real.
He brought up the money first. That’s where it got really sharp. Middle-class families are being exploited financially. Gandhi pointed out those expenditure estimates. He said families chasing things like the NEET test spend an estimated 1.32 lakh crore a year on coaching, rooms, fees. That number alone is huge. It's almost as much as what the government formally sets aside for education.
It just sounds insane.
He expanded that critique to all five major exams: SSC, UPSC, RRB, JEE, and NEET. Total private spending? Another three and a half lakh crore annually. He called it an "extortion machine." It doesn't guarantee jobs. Especially when you look at the constant drama of delayed recruitment or those paper leaks hanging over everything.
The setup was deliberate, too. They put all these aspirants the ones prepping for medicine, engineering, civil service right in front of him. Asking them to share their real experiences about rising fees and just plain anxiety.
And then there’s the career path thing. Gandhi mentioned how little choice there is. Out of lakhs of young people, almost everyone feels boxed in. They can only think doctor, engineer, lawyer, civil servant, or soldier. No room for anything else. It’s this severe lack of vocational diversity that sticks with you.
This whole spectacle happened just days before the NEET-UG re-examination on June 21st. Things were already boiling over with political tension between the Congress and the ruling party. Ashok Gehlot, the former Rajasthan CM, was pointing fingers at local administration for pulling promotional signs under pressure. But the BJP side spun it completely differently. They called it a disruption. A move meant to distract students right before their crucial tests.
Gandhi insisted that this wasn't about partisan politics. It was strictly about student welfare. He demanded accountability from the National Testing Agency, the NTA. He wanted them to fix the security protocols for exams immediately.
The party’s next steps are already set. After Kota, they plan to roll out these youth conventions across places like Allahabad, Patna, and New Delhi over the coming weeks. The pressure is definitely mounting.
Written by Gree News Team — Senior Editorial Board
Gree News Team covers international news and global affairs at Gree News. Our collective of senior editors is dedicated to providing independent, accurate, and responsible journalism for a global audience.
More from Education
View All
Supreme Court Decision on NEET-UG 2026 Exam Challenge and Legal Proceedings
The Supreme Court didn’t grant an urgent hearing on that Public Interest Litigation. It declined it. The challenge against the National Testing Agency’s decision to scrap the NEET-UG 2026 exam. That was the call. It was supposed to be listed before a vacation bench, maybe even Chief Justice of India
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

QS World University Rankings 2027: Analysis of Global Academic Shifts
The QS World University Rankings for 2027 finally dropped. It’s out now. And you see IIT Delhi up there again. Top spot in India, once more. They climbed five places this time. Now they sit at number 118 globally. That's a big jump from last year. Last year they were at 123. Highest rank ever for an
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Abhishek Singh Defends Blocking of Telegram for NEET-UG Exam Security
Abhishek Singh, the Director General of the National Testing Agency, basically stood up and defended the government’s move to block Telegram temporarily before the re-NEET-UG 2026 exam. It wasn't some casual decision; it was a reaction to something really toxic happening on that platform. He argued
Jun 17, 2026 by Gree News Team

Mandatory Rituals and Ideological Conflict in School Education
The whole thing just exploded. This sweeping order from the School Education Department it’s a total shift for how schools operate across the state. They made it mandatory. Apparently, starting with the 2026-27 academic session, everything changes. It’s not just some new rule; it’s about restructuri
Jun 17, 2026 by Gree News Team
Latest Headlines

Donald Trump's Personal Dynamics in Meetings with Prime Minister Modi
Donald Trump seemed to really lean into the personal stuff during his meeting with Prime Minister Modi in France, especially while they were both hanging around the G7 Summit. It wasn’t just about trade or defense talks, though those things were definitely on the table regional security, cooperation
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

India's Growing Importance in Global Geopolitics and US-India Relations
Ian Bremmer, the guy who started Eurasia Group, he was talking about India today. He said its importance in global platforms? That’s gonna jump up over the next couple years. It felt like a shift. This followed something Trump said back there at the G7 summit in Evian, France. A kind of acknowledgme
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Modi-Zelenskyy Talks and G7 Support for Ukraine
Modi met Zelenskyy during the G7 summit in Évian, France. It wasn’t just a formality though. They talked about cooperation. Trade ties. And trying to find some peace amidst all that mess happening over in Ukraine and Russia. S. Jaishankar and Ajit Doval were there too. External Affairs Minister and
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Elye Wahi Arrested Over Match-Fixing Allegations
Elye Wahi, that Ivory Coast forward who’s representing his country at the 2026 World Cup he got arrested less than two weeks before the tournament. The reason? Allegations of match-fixing. That came out in *The Athletic* on Wednesday. Sources say he's now the subject of this whole ongoing probe. Inv
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Bhagwant Mann on Sacrilege, Justice, and the Future of Punjab
Bhagwant Mann hammered home his government’s stance on those 2015 sacrilege incidents. He insisted that the people responsible for those acts would face serious punishment and be brought to justice. He spoke about this during a public meeting in Hoshiarpur, talking about how those events the beadbi
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding Released
US officials finally put out the paperwork today. A memorandum of understanding with Iran. It’s supposed to end the war, but there’s more hanging over it stuff about diluting that enriched uranium stockpile. This agreement, which they released on Wednesday, came after a lot of criticism about how se
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Nawaz Sharif's Plea for Peace in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
Nawaz Sharif, President of the PML-N, basically threw an urgent plea out there about the whole messed up situation in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He called for peace, seriously. He held this big party meeting in Lahore on Wednesday, June 17th. And what he did was call out both the protesters down the
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Sam Altman on AI Control and Global Governance
Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, was talking to world leaders at that G7 summit. He basically pushed them, didn't he? He argued you can’t just hand over control of artificial intelligence to the companies building it. He told everyone, “Don’t cede your responsibilities to AI labs like mine.” It felt
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Shubman Gill's Performance and the Challenge of the ODI
The whole thing just happened, you know? That second ODI in Lucknow against Afghanistan. Shubman Gill, the skipper, he admitted something pretty specific about what was going on. He said he was aiming for a double hundred, that big milestone against the Afghans. But it wasn't just about hitting that
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Systemic Abuse and Legal Reckoning in Grooming Gang Scandals
In that packed session, Rupert Lowe really pushed things. It was a massive parliamentary session, and he brought all this stuff out the actual testimonies from survivors of those grooming gang scandals in the UK. It wasn't abstract policy; it was raw, graphic evidence forced right into the middle of
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Supreme Court Decision on NEET-UG 2026 Exam Challenge and Legal Proceedings
The Supreme Court didn’t grant an urgent hearing on that Public Interest Litigation. It declined it. The challenge against the National Testing Agency’s decision to scrap the NEET-UG 2026 exam. That was the call. It was supposed to be listed before a vacation bench, maybe even Chief Justice of India
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

The Unscripted Narrative of the World Cup: Momentum, History, and Reaction
The whole thing started, you know? It wasn't what anyone was expecting when Portugal met DR Congo for that opening group match at the World Cup 2026. There were expectations, huge ones maybe, but nothing really lining up on the pitch right from the jump. It felt like a slow build, honestly. Just thi
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

Defense Production Act and Military Manufacturing Strategy
Trump brought in the Defense Production Act DPA to push for faster weapons manufacturing. It was all about dealing with those worries about military stockpiles running low, especially after everything that went down with Iran and how the US keeps backing allies globally. The order itself came with a
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

BJP Organizational Exercise and Political Strategy
Something big was happening inside the BJP this week. A real organizational exercise, it seems, kicked off after a coordination meeting in Delhi on Monday. Top leaders met up with senior RSS functionaries. Nothing official has been announced yet, of course. But you could tell something was brewing t
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team

India's Global Ambition: Technology, Diplomacy, and Geopolitical Realities in Paris
The air in Paris felt different that day. Not just the usual Parisian chill there’s always a certain weight to the city, heavy history mixed with relentless modernity but there was an electric hum beneath the surface. A real crowd spilling out from the hotel lobby, waving flags the saffron, white, g
Jun 18, 2026 by Gree News Team