Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s immediate resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the cancellation of the National Eligibility Test for Undergraduate Entrance Test (NEET-UG) held on May 3 due to alleged paper leak.
Gandhi alleged a “money-making nexus” between the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), its parent organization the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and its faculty in universities.
“The entire country knows that two days before the exam, the NEET question paper was circulated on WhatsApp. Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan ji says he has nothing to do with this,” Gandhi said in a video posted on X.
The opposition leader’s remarks were followed by a large-scale protest organized by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) in New Delhi earlier in the day, which led to the arrest of several members, including party president Uday Bano Shib.
In his video, Gandhi called for the immediate “dismissal” of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the newspaper leak.
“The Prime Minister must immediately issue an order for the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan. He must be removed, and the guilty must be arrested and put in jail,” he said.
He also criticized the Prime Minister for not addressing the leak, adding that he had been “silent” while more than 2.2 million students had been “cheated”.
“22 lakh NEET kids have been cheated. But Modi ji is not saying a single word. Remove Dharmendra Pradhan ji now, or take responsibility yourself. Modi ji, sack Dharmendra Pradhan ji now,” he wrote on X.
Gandhi also accused the government of “harming the essence of India”, alleging that the BJP and the RSS have a “money-making nexus” involving faculty members working within the country’s universities.
“This is a relationship with the RSS, the BJP and their people appointed in our universities. Vice-chancellors and professors have been appointed. They have a money-making relationship among themselves, which has ended the education system in India,” he said.
“The entire country knows that if you want to become vice-chancellor, you don’t need knowledge or experience in the subject. If you are from RSS, you can become vice-chancellor,” Gandhi said in the video, adding that the practice caused leakage of 80 papers and ruined the future of around 20 million youth in the country.
Read also: NEET retake date announced: The exam will be conducted on June 21, according to NTA
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday arrested the alleged mastermind in the NEET-UG 2026 question paper leak case. The accused has been identified as Manisha Gurunath Mandhari, a senior botany (biology) teacher from Pune who was also part of the paper preparation committee of the National Testing Agency (NTA) for the medical entrance examination.
Her arrest came a day after the Central Bureau of Investigation tracked down and arrested the alleged main conspirator in the case, chemistry teacher PV Kulkarni. He also participated in the examination process through NTA, which gave him access to the question papers.
Investigators alleged that Mandhare shared the leaked questions and answers with selected students and collected fees worth several lakh rupees.
Meanwhile, students also paid several lakh rupees to attend Kulkarni’s sessions, where they copied questions in notebooks, officials told news agency PTI. The exact amounts are not yet known.
So far, nine people from five states have been arrested over four days. They include Mandhari, Kulkarni and Waghmare from Pune, Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar, Khairnar from Nashik, Mangilal Piwal, also known as Mangilal Khatik, Vikas Piwal and Dinesh Piwal from Jaipur, and Yadav from Gurugram.
The agency said on Saturday that searches were conducted in six places across the country in the past 24 hours. Officials recovered documents, laptops, bank records and cell phones that may be linked to the case.
