Bhubaneswar: The Opposition BJD and Congress in Odisha has stepped up pressure for resignation of School and Mass Education minister Nityananda Gond over the massive errors discovered in newly published school textbooks for Classes I to VIII.
Leader of Opposition and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik on Monday exhorted him to follow the example of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who resigned recently amid nationwide protests over irregularities in the NEET-UG examination. “There have been a number of mistakes in the textbooks of the students in our state. He [Nityananda Gond] should follow the example of Shri Dharmendra Pradhan and resign from his post as Education Minister. That is what the Biju Janata Dal has been demanding for the last two or three weeks,” he told reporters after a meeting with senior party leaders to discuss ongoing SIR process in Odisha and various organisational matters.
The controversy erupted after reports revealed around 1,678 errors across 55 new textbooks introduced under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 for the 2026-27 academic session. These include factual inaccuracies, grammatical and spelling mistakes, wrong photographs, and cultural misrepresentations, such as describing physicist Isaac Newton as a “great pilot,” labeling Odisha’s Niyamgiri Hills as being in Jharkhand, and mistaking Karnataka’s legislative assembly building for Odisha’s or Hampi for the Konark Sun Temple. Class VIII books reportedly contained the highest number of errors, at around 705.
The lapses have disrupted the academic session for lakhs of students and drawn widespread criticism from educationists, parents, teachers, and political parties, raising questions about the quality control in the rushed preparation of the books, which were produced in a short timeframe following the BJP government’s push for NEP implementation.
The calls for Gond’s resignation gained momentum after Dharmendra resigned on Saturday, following nationwide protests led by students’ groups, including the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), over the NEET-UG examination paper leak. Opposition leaders in Odisha contend that if political accountability was enforced at the national level for examination lapses, the state administration must uphold the same standard for an issue directly affecting thousands of schoolchildren.
Though Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi ordered an inquiry, leading to the suspension of four senior officials, including former SCERT director Manoj Padhi, and initiated corrective measures, Opposition parties have dismissed these steps as insufficient. The Biju Chhatra Janata Dal (BCJD), the student wing of the BJD, has launched a statewide ‘Save Education’ campaign, with leaders Arun Sahoo and Ipsita Sahoo warning of statewide agitation if Gond does not resign. The party has also demanded a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the textbook printing process, claiming possible corruption involving around Rs 380 crore.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das echoed the demand for Gond’s immediate resignation, why the chief minister continues to shield the minister despite the scale of the embarrassment. He has warned of a state-wide shutdown (bandh) if action is not taken within a week.
BJP leaders, including general secretary Biranchi Narayan Tripathy and state vice-president Golak Mohapatra, countered by accusing the BJD of double standards, citing past examination irregularities during the BJD regime. They defended the state government’s actions, noting that officials have been held accountable and corrective processes are underway. BJP spokesperson Sameer Ranjan Das emphasised that criminal charges would be filed against those found guilty.
The row has put the spotlight on accountability in education governance. While the government maintains that the books were an ambitious effort to align with national policy reforms, the opposition argues that such lapses betray students’ trust and demand leadership-level responsibility, much like at the Centre.
