By Ananya Sharma 
New Delhi, May 29: Arvind Kejriwal said what he had to say in one line. That is honestly his style.
Friday afternoon, after Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta put out an announcement saying NEET students would get free bus rides on exam day, Kejriwal went on X and wrote: “After the Punjab government, now the Delhi government has also made buses free for NEET students.”
Ten words. No press conference. No long explanation. But anyone following Delhi politics knew exactly what he meant.
Punjab Was Already There
A few days before Delhi made its move, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had announced something similar, actually a bit more generous. Students appearing for NEET (UG) 2026 on June 21 would travel free on Punjab Roadways buses across three days, June 20, 21, and 22. Not just exam day. The day before and the day after too, so students could travel to their centres without rushing and come back without stress.
Mann did not announce this in complicated government language. He said it straight. A lot of NEET students come from poor families. Some of them genuinely do not have money for bus fare on exam day. When Kejriwal had recently sat and spoken with a group of NEET students, this came up. They asked for help. So Punjab decided to help.
Show your admit card at the bus stand and you will not pay a rupee. That was the whole thing.
Delhi came out with its own version shortly after. CM Gupta said students could board any DTC bus on June 21 for free, just by showing their admit card. She wrote that no student should face trouble on a day this important for their future. Fair enough. Good intention, no argument there.
But Kejriwal noticed the timing. And he said so.
What This Is Really About
Look, free bus travel for exam students is not a new idea. State governments have done versions of this before, during board exams, entrance tests, government job exams. It is not exactly revolutionary policy.
But that does not mean it does not matter.
NEET (UG) is a brutal exam by any measure. One paper. One day. One shot at getting into a medical college. Students spend two, three, sometimes four years preparing for it. Families in small towns and working class neighbourhoods spend serious money, money they often do not have easily, on coaching, study material, travel, sometimes hostel stays near coaching centres. All of it adds up over years.
And then on the actual day of the exam, a student has to get from home to the exam centre. In a city like Delhi, that could mean travelling across the whole city. For a student from a family that counts every rupee, even that bus fare is one more thing to arrange, one more thing to stress about on a morning when they are already carrying everything.
Free travel does not fix coaching fees. It does not fix the inequality baked into how NEET preparation works in this country. But it removes one small worry from one very important morning. And for some students, that actually means something.
Kejriwal Is Watching Everything
AAP lost Delhi in the assembly elections earlier this year. That was a significant blow. But Kejriwal has not gone quiet. He has been showing up, meeting people, commenting on government decisions, making sure he stays in the picture.
This remark about Punjab going first was part of that. It was a message to AAP voters in Delhi, essentially telling them that the kind of thinking their party brought to governance is now being copied. It was also a pat on Punjab’s back, where Bhagwant Mann is running the government and doing things Kejriwal can point to.
Whether Delhi independently decided to offer free bus travel or whether someone in the government looked at Punjab’s announcement and thought it was a good idea to follow, nobody is saying. But the sequence is what it is. Punjab first, Delhi second. And Kejriwal made sure that sequence was visible.
The Student Who Just Wants to Clear the Exam
Somewhere in Uttam Nagar or Shahdara or Rohini right now, there is a kid who has been waking up at five in the morning for two years straight. Mock tests every weekend. Notes everywhere. Parents quietly sacrificing things so coaching fees get paid. That student is not thinking about AAP or BJP. They are thinking about June 21.
They have their admit card ready. They know which centre they are going to. They have probably already figured out which bus route to take.
This year, in Delhi and in Punjab, they will not have to pay for that ride. Small thing, yes. But on a morning that tense, one less thing to think about is genuinely a relief.
NEET Has Been Through a Lot
It is worth remembering that NEET as an institution has had a rough couple of years. The 2024 exam was hit with serious allegations of paper leaks. Students protested across the country. Cases went to the Supreme Court. Questions were raised in Parliament about whether the exam is even conducted fairly. Several states and student groups have been asking for reforms, some calling for scrapping NEET altogether and going back to state-level admissions.
None of that debate has been resolved. The system is still the same, the pressure on students is still the same, and the inequality in preparation still exists. Free bus rides do not touch any of that.
But the fact that governments across party lines are now making these kinds of gestures around NEET says something. Students and their families have become a constituency that politicians do not want to be seen ignoring. And in a year when NEET’s credibility is still being questioned, being seen as supportive of students costs nothing and earns goodwill.
So Delhi and Punjab have both made their announcements. June 21 is coming. Students in both states will travel free.
The only real fight left is over who thought of it first. And that, honestly, is a fight only politicians care about.
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- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
- Ananya Sharma
Sandeep Verma 
Herald Desk