Dharmendra Pradhan Resigns In Big Win For CJP — The 24-Hour Reversal Explained
Dharmendra Pradhan Resigns :A day after the government ruled out his exit, Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as Education Minister amid CJP’s NEET paper leak protests. Here’s what changed.
North Desk Correspondent
New Delhi, July 25
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday, submitting his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and telling the country his exit was “not a matter of individual prestige.” The move came just a day after government sources had explicitly ruled it out — a reversal that hands the Cockroach Janta Party its biggest and least expected win in a five-week standoff that began over a leaked medical entrance exam.
ALSO READ: Why Sonam Wangchuk Ended His 26-Day Fast: The Four Assurances That Ended the Standoff
Dharmendra Pradhan Resigns : But How fast this turned
Dharmendra Pradhan Resigns : On Friday, the picture looked settled. Sonam Wangchuk had broken his 26-day hunger strike a day earlier after the government promised fast-track courts for paper-leak cases and “positive consideration” of protesters’ other demands, but held the line on Pradhan. BJP sources told reporters the decision to keep him was political, tied to calculations within the party’s Odisha unit, not any assessment of his handling of the crisis.
CJP’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, responded by hardening his position: nothing short of Pradhan’s resignation was acceptable, he said, even as he welcomed Wangchuk’s decision to end his fast.
A CJP delegation met Union Ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh at the Constitution Club on Friday and came out saying the demand was “non-negotiable,” alongside a call for a public apology and Rs 1 crore compensation for the families of students who died by suicide after the May 3 exam was scrapped.
By Saturday afternoon, Pradhan was gone.
What he said
In a two-page public letter addressed to the country’s youth, Pradhan framed the exit as his own call, not a directive from the top. He said he had accepted responsibility “from day one” and would not let the controversy trap students “in a web of confusion.” He recalled the government’s response after irregularities surfaced in the May 3 exam — handing the probe to the CBI, cancelling and re-conducting the test for over 20 lakh candidates by June 21, and shifting NEET to a computer-based format from next year. He pointed to the July 16 results as vindication, noting several meritorious candidates from economically weaker backgrounds had cleared the re-test.
He also cautioned that “anti-national forces” should not be allowed to exploit the situation at Jantar Mantar or elsewhere — a line likely to draw pushback from CJP and the protesting students it represents.
Where the protest goes now
CJP has not signalled it is standing down. Dipke had already said before the resignation that the party’s dharna at Jantar Mantar would continue “until Dharmendra Pradhan resigns” — a bar that has now technically been cleared, but the party’s broader charge sheet also includes accountability for the July 20 police crackdown, an apology to protesters, and compensation for victims’ families, none of which is resolved. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had accused the government of using premier institutions like DU and JNU to pressure students to stay away from the protest site rather than addressing the substance of the demands — a line the opposition is likely to keep pressing now that the government has, in effect, conceded its central point after days of insisting it wouldn’t.
The open questions from here: who replaces Pradhan, whether the fast-track court and compensation promises actually materialise, and whether CJP treats this as a win to declare victory on or as proof that sustained pressure works — and keeps pushing.
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ALSO READ: Why Sonam Wangchuk Ended His 26-Day Fast: The Four Assurances That Ended the Standoff
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