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NEET Petitioner Anitha's Suicide A 'Political Conspiracy', Says Tamil Nadu BJP President

Political mud-slinging at a time of tragedy.
Screenshot/YouTube

The official ideology of the BJP on paper may be "integral humanism" as was once formulated by Deendayal Upadhyaya, but that motto doesn't seem to work in reality.

Just two days after the death of 17-year-old Anitha, who killed herself after failing to get admission to a medical college, the Tamil Nadu BJP President Tamilisai Soundarajan has alleged that Anitha's 'suicide' is a political conspiracy against the national party.

In a series of tweets, the spokesperson has now warned protesters against "testing" the party's "tolerance".

She termed the suicide a conspiracy and defended the Entrance exam.

Screenshot/Twitter
Screenshot/Twitter

While Anitha's death has united Tamil Nadu's opposition parties in condemning the Chief Minister E Palaniswami government and also the BJP-led central government, the BJP spokesperson lashed out at the Opposition and accused it of misleading people.

Screenshot/Twitter

The party's national secretary, H Raja, asked if the Dalit student had actually taken her own life.

Just before Soundarajan's tweets, Raja had tweeted asking, "How could a girl who had publicly announced that she would study Agri and help farmers end her life? Is her life the ball which Stalin wanted to play?"

Twitter
Twitter

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old's family has rejected the Tamil Nadu government's offer of seven lakh rupees in financial aid. "Anitha died to get exemption from NEET and not for any government aid," Anitha's brother Mani Ratnam said, turning away G Laxmi Priya the district collector of the state's Ariyalur.

Daughter of a Dalit daily-wage labourer, Anitha wanted to be a doctor. She scored excellent marks in her Class 12 exams and hoped they would help her get admission to a medical college. However, with the Supreme Court's order that admissions in Tamil Nadu would be based not on Class 12 marks but on NEET, the national common entrance exam, which Anitha could not crack, her dreams wouldn't have been fulfilled.

On Friday, she was found hanging at her house in a village in Ariyalur district.

The 17-year-old's suicide has led to massive protests across Tamil Nadu, in demand to scrap off NEET completely. Several students in Trichy also began an indefnite strike demanding the withdrawal of the entrance exam.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.