New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday sharpened his attack on the Centre over the CBSE On-Screen Marking (OSM) controversy, sharing a video of his interaction with a group of students and describing them as brave young Indians who asked legitimate questions but received "insults instead of answers" from the government.
Asserting that the students deserved a bright and secure future, Gandhi said, "We will make sure they get it."
Posting the video on his social media accounts, Gandhi sarcastically described it as a "revealing chat with my fellow 'anti-national Soros agents'."
"Vedant and his friends are brilliant, brave young Indians who asked CBSE and the Modi government simple questions -- but got insults instead of answers," Gandhi wrote on X while sharing the clip.
In the video, Gandhi is seen having an informal discussion with the students about the controversy surrounding the evaluation process. He also joked about how they were allegedly labelled "Pakistanis" and "deep state agents" after raising concerns regarding their answer sheets.
"You are students. You are asking for your answer sheets, that's all. Now, suddenly, you have become anti-nationals. You have to accept the problem if you have to solve the problem. You are refusing to accept the problem and blaming the poor kids and saying, 'you are deep state, you are spies, terrorists'," Gandhi said, criticising the government's handling of the issue.
The controversy erupted after several CBSE Class 12 students reported discrepancies while accessing scanned copies of their answer sheets through the board's revaluation portal, claiming that the uploaded answer sheets did not belong to them.
A post by Class 12 student Vedant on X, alleging that the Physics answer sheet uploaded by CBSE during the revaluation process was not his, went viral. Following his post, several other students also came forward with similar complaints.
CBSE subsequently contacted the affected students and provided them with their correct answer sheets. The board stated that it had taken the cases involving alleged mismatched answer sheets and other concerns raised during the revaluation process on "top priority".
Vedant was among the students who later met and interacted with Gandhi.
According to government sources, experts from IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur and the Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India (DICI) are examining the system and working to strengthen the portal and its payment gateway integration.
Gandhi has also criticised Coempt, the company responsible for carrying out the OSM process for CBSE examinations. He alleged that the firm, previously known as Globarena, had already been embroiled in controversies.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha has demanded an independent judicial probe and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) inquiry into what he described as the "entire scam". He also questioned why a company with a controversial track record in Telangana was awarded the contract by the CBSE.
With PTI inputs