Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from his post on Saturday, bowing to days of intense protest over alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG examination.
Announcing the decision on X, Pradhan said he had submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He explained that the step was necessary to prevent anti-national forces from exploiting the unrest building up at Jantar Mantar and in other parts of the country, to preserve national unity, and to spare students from getting caught up in legal troubles so they could focus on their studies and futures instead.
The resignation followed weeks of sustained agitation led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which had set up protest camps at Jantar Mantar in the capital. Just hours before the resignation was announced, CJP leaders had cautioned that the group would harden its stance if the government continued to stay silent on Pradhan’s fate.
Speaking to the press earlier in the day, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said a recent round of talks with Union Ministers J.P. Nadda and Jitendra Singh had been productive. He indicated that the organisation’s next steps would hinge on how clearly the government addressed the question of Pradhan’s resignation.
Ranka said the previous day’s meeting had brought positive signals on two of the group’s key demands — financial compensation for affected families and the dropping of legal cases filed against student protesters — with both sides reaching a broad understanding. He added that the CJP was expecting written confirmation of that understanding soon. However, he stressed that no clear commitment had yet been made on the group’s primary demand, the minister’s resignation, and that some reports circulating in the media suggested Pradhan had no plans to step down. Ranka said the government owed the protesters a straightforward answer rather than dragging out negotiations, warning that continued silence would force the CJP to escalate its response.
By Saturday evening, with Pradhan’s resignation officially announced, attention shifted to how the CJP and other protesting groups would respond and whether the remaining demands — including compensation and the withdrawal of cases against students — would be formally met.
