The Opposition demanded the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan after the chairman and secretary of the Central Board of Secondary Education were transferred on Tuesday following allegations of widespread mismanagement in the Class 12 board examination results.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi described the government’s action as a “cover-up” and alleged that “the real culprit”, Pradhan, was “spared”.
“Our demand remains the same today: Dismiss the education minister and conduct an independent inquiry,” Gandhi said in a social media post. “If the Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] cared about the 18.5 million CBSE students–Dharmendra Pradhan ji would have been removed long ago.”
Congress president Mallikarjun said that “nothing less than [Pradhan’s resignation] would provide a sense of justice” to CBSE students.
His party colleague Jairam Ramesh alleged that the transfer of the CBSE chairman and secretary was “an attempt to deflect attention by holding bureaucrats accountable instead of the political leadership” and added that “justice requires that minister Pradhan be dismissed”.
He added that the transfer of the two CBSE officials and the formation of an inquiry committee indicated that “irregularities did occur”.
On Tuesday, a one-member inquiry committee chaired by S Radha Chauhan, the head of the Capacity Building Commission, was also set up to look into the procurement of On-Screen Marking Services by the board. The committee has been directed to submit a report within a month to the Department of Personnel and Training.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal said that the transfers had “sprinkled salt on the wounds of millions of children and their parents”. He alleged that the government was effectively sending the message that “the education minister will not be changed, do whatever you have to”.
Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray said that it was a “shame” that the Bharatiya Janata Party government appeared to regard the transfers as a “major action”.
“For ruining the careers of lakhs of students and their parents, the education minister Pradhan must be sacked,” he added.
In the last two weeks, several discrepancies were flagged in the CBSE’s On-Screen Marking evaluation process for Class 12 answer sheets.
Many students had alleged that the scanned copies of answer sheets uploaded by the CBSE did not match their handwriting, raising concerns about possible answer sheet mismatches. Students seeking re-evaluation also alleged that they faced portal failures, delays in payment confirmation and, in some cases, were asked to pay excess fees because of technical glitches.
Separately, a cybersecurity researcher, Nisarga Adhikary, has claimed on social media that he had discovered that the OnMark portal link was publicly accessible and that an analysis of its code showed vulnerabilities that could potentially allow accounts of examiners to be taken over.
Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.
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