New Delhi: Even after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced fast-track courts to punish those responsible for the NEET-UG paper leak and assured the youth of introducing a tough new law, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) stuck to its No. 1 demand – the resignation of Union Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Union minister J P Nadda and Jitendra Singh kept meeting CJP’s spokespersons and urged them to call off the Jantar Mantar agitation, but Abhijeet Dipke’s organisation remained adamant.
When Nadda asked for 24 hours from CJP after Friday’s meeting, the entire country started speculating – will he or won’t he?
After all, not many ministers had resigned owning moral responsibility for a ‘failure’ since the BJP-led NDA came to power in 2014.
So when Pradhan finally resigned – more than two months after NEET-UG 2026 was cancelled nine days after the exam was held – it represented a huge victory for CJP, the students and youth of the country who had been protesting at Jantar Mantar for 49 days.
Even as social media users and so-called political ‘pundits’ claimed this was the first instance of a Modi minister being forced to resign, the fact is, it’s rare but not unprecedented.
Back in October 2018, journalist-turned-politician M.J. Akbar quit because of a controversy, albeit of a different kind.
Having joined the BJP in 2014, the former editor was inducted into the Union Cabinet by PM Modi on 5th July, 2016, as minister of State for External Affairs.
As the #MeToo movement gained pace in 2018, allegations were made against multiple renowned personalities. One of them was Akbar.
He was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, most of them having been his colleagues when he was the Editor of several leading newspapers.
Journalist Priya Ramani was the first to publicly accuse Akbar of sexual harassment. More than 20 other women then came forward with similar allegations amid the #MeToo movement in India.
Akbar initially turned down calls to resign as a minister, saying that, “Accusations without evidence have become a viral fever.”
But as the complaints piled up and chorus for his resignation grew louder, Akbar finally resigned from his post on 17th October, 2018.
There was another case which may be mentioned here. Union Railway minister Suresh Prabhu had offered to step down, taking full responsibility for two terrible train accidents in the space of five days in August 2017.
But PM Modi advised him to ‘wait’. In the Cabinet reshuffle the following month, Suresh was reassigned as Minister of Commerce and Industry.
