Yesterday, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was speaking about on Tuesday when she tore into BJP MPs for the way they welcomed Dharmendra Pradhan back into Parliament.
Just two days after Pradhan resigned as Education Minister, some of his party colleagues in the Parliament complex greeted him with a traditional cap, a stole, and loud slogans of “Pradhan Zindabad.” They treated him like he’d just returned from winning a big match. Priyanka didn’t hold back.
“Don’t you think it is shameful?” she asked. “Everyone saw the circumstances under which Dharmendra Pradhan resigned, but yesterday in the Parliament premises, he was welcomed as if he were a superstar!”
Those circumstances weren’t some quiet office decision. For weeks, young people—students who had prepared for years for exams that decide their entire future—had been out on the streets. The NEET paper leak controversy and a string of exam irregularities had left thousands feeling cheated. Protests at Jantar Mantar and across the country grew louder and more determined. Families of students who took their own lives after being forced to retake exams were still grieving. The pressure finally forced Pradhan to step down on 25 July. He said he was doing it so that “anti-national forces” wouldn’t take advantage and so students could focus on their studies again. Many in the opposition and among the protesters saw it differently—they called it a victory for the youth who refused to stay quiet.
And then, barely 48 hours later, the same man walks into Parliament and gets a hero’s reception from his own side. Opposition MPs weren’t having it. They shouted “Chor, chor, paper chor” right back. The contrast was hard to miss.
Priyanka didn’t stop at the welcome. She pointed out that even now, students are still being targeted. She spoke about Instagram posts showing photographs of young women being accused of things, and she asked a simple question: Are you actually trying to talk and fix the mess, or are you still more interested in suppressing the students? “This is wrong,” she said. “No one can trust the Modi government.”
Her brother Rahul Gandhi had already said his piece the day before. In a post on X, he called Pradhan a lasting symbol of corruption and of an education system that has failed India’s children. He reminded everyone that the system had claimed the lives of 26 young people and pushed lakhs of others onto the streets. Pradhan didn’t resign out of any sudden moral awakening, Rahul said—he resigned because the anger of the youth scared the government. And now the BJP was putting a garland on that same person inside Parliament. “This is not an honour,” Rahul wrote. “It is a celebration of the ruined futures of lakhs of children. Every student in the country is watching this, and will remember every face involved.”
There’s something deeply uncomfortable about the whole scene. On one side you have students who exhausted months studying, only to find the exam paper had been leaked, their hard work wasted, their mental health bone-tired. On the other side you have politicians inside the highest temple of democracy treating the man who presided over that mess like a returning champion. It sends a message, whether intentional or not: the real power still belongs to those who can manage the optics, not to those who suffer the consequences.
Of course politics is full of these moments. One day a minister is under fire, the next day the party closes ranks and puts on a show of strength. But when the issue involves the future of an entire generation of students—kids who trusted the system enough to put their dreams on the line—the performance feels especially tone-deaf. The “Cockroach Janta Party” protests may have quietened after the resignation, but the bitterness hasn’t disappeared. Young people are still watching. Parents are still watching. And the families who lost children are still carrying a grief that no slogan can erase.
Priyanka’s words cut through the usual political noise because they were plain. She didn’t need long speeches or complicated arguments. She simply pointed at what everyone could see and asked if it wasn’t shameful. In a country where education is still the biggest hope for jumping out of poverty and building a better life, the way leaders treat a crisis in that system matters more than any temporary show of loyalty inside the Parliament gates.
Sources:
– Economic Times, 28 July 2026
– India Today, 28 July 2026
– Reports on Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation and the student protests over NEET paper leaks, July 2026
@Rohit Manral