DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Chandigarh Congress held a strong protest against the decision of the Central Government to hold JEE and NEET exams next month. Indian National Congress held protests all across the country to demand the postponement of JEE-NEET exams. Chandigarh Congress started the protest march shouting slogans from Congress Bhawan in Sector-35 Chandigarh Congress president Pardeep Chhabra said that on one hand the number of cases of Coronavirus in India has crossed 33 lakhs by seeing the single largest one day spike of 75,000 cases and on other hand Modi government is putting lives of students at risk by asking them to appear for JEE-NEET exams next month. He said that this is being expected from students when most of the modes of transport are either closed or being allowed only with minimum occupancy. Chandigarh Congress leaders like Subhash Chawla, Harmohinder Singh Lucky, , Rupinder Gujral, Ajay Joshi, Gurpreet Gabi, Shashi Shankar Tiwari, Jeet Singh, Ajay Sharma, Yadvinder Mehta, Gurcharandas Kapa, were present at the protest site. Ministers of six non-BJP ruled states on Friday moved the Supreme Court against its order allowing holding of NEET and JEE exams amid the COVID pandemic, as the row over the contentious issues intensified with the top Congress leadership stepping up its offensive against the government, while Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank asserted that politics should be kept away from education. National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts medical and engineering entrance exams --National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test and the Joint Entrance Examination, has decided to hold NEET on September 13 and JEE Mains for under-graduate Engineering Colleges and Institutes from September 1 to 6. With barely days left for the JEE exams to start, the issue has escalated into a full blown political battle with the ministers from six states -- Rajasthan and Punjab (Congress), West Bengal (Trinamool Congress), Jharkhand (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), Maharashtra (Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena) -- seeking postponement of the exams "in a manner that achieves the twin objectives of ensuring that the academic year of the students is not wasted and their health and safety is not compromised. Many students have taken to Twitter to express their concern over holding of JEE and NEET during the COVID-19 pandemic, amid a plea by opposition leaders on Friday seeking review of the Supreme Court's order allowing the Centre to conduct the entrance exams in September. The hashtag 'speakupforstudentsafety' has been trending since Friday morning with at least 2.25 million posts on the microblogging site. While many students in their tweets pointed out the challenges of making it to examination centres under the present circumstances, others talked about their inability to cope with the stress of having to appear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). (editor@dailyworld.in)