- Dharmendra Pradhan says he has sent farewell to PM Modi.
- Adds does not want “anti-national” forces to take advantage
- The announcement elicits cheers from protesters.
NEW DELHI: Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday he had resigned, giving a major victory to youth protesters across the country who had demanded he step down to take responsibility for the leak of exam papers.
The minister announced his resignation on X just as police fired tear gas to disperse youth protesters in the Indian capital, hours before their leaders were due to hold another round of talks with ministers to push for the move.
“Considering the situation that has arisen at Jantar Mantar and across the country, so that anti-national forces do not take advantage of this situation… I have sent my resignation letter to the Prime Minister,” Pradhan wrote in his post.
“I deeply respect the aspirations, feelings and legitimate expectations of the country’s youth.”
“We have done it,” Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party that led the protests, said to loud cheers at the Jantar Mantar protest site in New Delhi.
Cheers erupted among the thousands of protesters who have gathered in central Delhi and elsewhere as the news spread.
Pradhan, 57, is a senior leader of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and has been seen as a rising figure and even previously mentioned as a potential BJP leader.
A minister since Modi first took office in 2014, he has held oil and natural gas, steel, skill development and education portfolios and became education minister in 2021. His father was a veteran BJP leader and served as a junior union minister between 1998 and 2004.
Pradhan’s resignation is “a victory for peace, patience and endurance,” wrote activist Sonam Wangchuk, who was on hunger strike for 26 days in support of the youth movement, the X.
India’s biggest street protests in recent years have become a political flashpoint, posing one of the biggest challenges for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as politicians joined youth calls to demand action.
Thousands of supporters of India’s youth-led “cockroach” movement had been protesting since June, but anger boiled over after police on Monday injured dozens of students, launched baton charges and fired tear gas to deter crowds of protesters marching on parliament.
The protests, mainly led by young people and sparked by discontent over leaks of question papers for high-stakes entrance exams, reflect anger over job scarcity, corruption and government accountability.
Federal authorities also restricted access to the Internet and to 18 subway stations on Saturday to try to contain the protest in the capital, the latest day of such restrictions.
Pradhan is only the second minister to resign following a scandal since Modi came to power in 2014. MJ Akbar stepped down as junior minister of state in October 2018 to combat allegations of sexual harassment made by more than a dozen women during India’s #MeToo movement.
Students, youth activists and opposition supporters had staged protests in the states of West Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in recent days with placards demanding Pradhan’s resignation and boycott of classes in some places.
