Former Union Education minister and Sambalpur MP Dharmendra Pradhan has spoken publicly about his resignation amid protests over the NEET paper leak controversy, saying he believed Gen Z protesters was misled during the agitation.
Speaking at a felicitation ceremony for Padma awardees in Sambalpur on Saturday, Pradhan said he had approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to recognise the concerns of the younger generation.
Pradhan said he wanted the aspirations of young protesters to be acknowledged rather than allowing their grievances to be used for political purposes.
Pradhan says Gen Z was misled
Recalling the events surrounding the protests, Pradhan said, “I have been a victim of Gen Z. For some time, the way this whole episode unfolded, I felt some people tried to mislead the children of the new generation,”
He said he had met Modi and sought his approval to address the concerns of the protesters directly.
“I met the Prime Minister and requested him to agree to the desire of Gen Z. I told him to allow me to acknowledge this in front of the children. I never staked my personal honour in the matter,” he said.
According to Pradhan, the Prime Minister agreed and later addressed the issue himself.
“The Prime Minister accepted this, and later he himself spoke about it in front of the children.”
Why did Dharmendra Pradhan resign?
Pradhan resigned on July 25 after weeks of student protests linked to the NEET paper leak controversy.
In his resignation note, he said his decision was intended to prevent “anti-national forces” from exploiting the agitation and to ensure that the future of students did not get “entangled in legal complexities”.
“It is not a matter of individual prestige for me,” he had said.
Pradhan had maintained that the government acted after irregularities were reported in the May 3 NEET-UG examination. The investigation was handed over to the CBI, the examination was cancelled and a re-examination was held on June 21, with results announced on July 16.
“From the very first day, I took responsibility for this, and I never turned away from this situation,” he said.
BJD hits back at Pradhan
Pradhan also spoke about the importance of India’s young population, saying, “Every year, around two crore children are born in India. If we look at those between the ages of 15 and 25, within a period of 10 years, there will be 20 crore children of the new generation on whose shoulders India will become a global leader,”
BJD leader Rohit Pujari, however, rejected Pradhan’s account and blamed the BJP government for the criticism he faced during the protests.