Pradhan Offered to Quit on Day One of NEET Protests: Vijayvargiya
MP Minister Claims Union Education Minister Was Ready to Resign as Student Agitation Began
By : PTI
Update: 2026-07-26 10:20 GMT
Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya has claimed that Dharmendra Pradhan had offered to resign as Union Education Minister on the very first day of the student agitation in Delhi.
"Pradhan's resignation has foiled the designs of those foreign forces that wanted to destabilise India by spreading violence, as happened in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. I congratulate him for what he has done," Vijayvargiya told reporters in Indore on Saturday.
Pradhan resigned on Saturday, following which the Cockroach Janta Party called off its 36-day agitation that galvanised lakhs of people over irregularities in exams and the NEET paper leak.
BJP's former general secretary Vijayvargiya said Pradhan discharged every responsibility assigned to him with honesty and dedication.
"On the first day, as soon as the student agitation began, Pradhan had told the BJP president that if he felt it was necessary, he was ready to resign as education minister," he said.
The party president then asked Pradhan not to resign, saying no decision had been taken on the issue and that he should neither submit his resignation nor discuss it with anyone until a decision was made, the BJP leader said.
Later, when circumstances changed and the party decided that Pradhan should step down, he resigned immediately, Vijayvargiya added.
Targeting the Congress over its celebration following Pradhan's resignation, Vijayvargiya used a Hindi proverb to say the Opposition party was "beating drums over the birth of a child in a neighbour's house".
"What role did the Congress play in the student agitation? The students launched the agitation and the Congress merely stood behind them. After the West Bengal assembly election, the Opposition became completely demoralised and, in that state of despair, found a ray of hope in the Cockroach Janata Party," he claimed.
The minister also asked whether any Congress leader faced police action during the student agitation. Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had acted like "termites" and hollowed the country's education system.
Targeting the Congress MP over the remarks, Vijayvargiya said, "I feel very sorry for Rahul Gandhi's political ideology and his intellect. I think he still needs to understand what the RSS is."
The country is moving in the right direction, the BJP leader said and credited the RSS for its contribution.