Lucknow, Jul 25 (PTI) Congress leaders here on Saturday erupted in joy at the news of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation and started distributing sweets.
“Sweets were exchanged with students who had appeared in the NEET. Some of these students had cleared the NEET, while others could not,” UP Congress chief Ajay Rai told PTI.
He said the sit-in by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi outside the prime minister’s residence in Delhi “proved to be the turning point” of the protest.
Opposition leaders, including Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Akhilesh Yadav, were forcibly removed by police on Tuesday after they staged a dharna outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence, demanding his resignation.
In a post on X in Hindi, the UP Congress, said, “An atmosphere of celebration was clearly visible today at the Congress state headquarters in Lucknow, where party workers and office-bearers, led by state president Ajay Rai (@kashikirai), came together to express their joy. Following persistent protests and a fierce struggle by students, ‘laddus’ were distributed at the Congress office upon hearing the news of Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.” “Leaders emphatically said that this victory is not merely about a minister losing his post; rather, it is a triumph of the youth’s outrage against a corrupt and incompetent system that had plunged the nation’s future into darkness through paper leaks,” the UP Congress said on X.
The party said the “resonance of this sentiment” has made it clear that governments driven by “arrogance and authoritarianism” can no longer withstand public pressure.
In Amethi, the Congress staged a candle march in protest against the NEET paper leak.
On Saturday, Pradhan resigned from his post amid raging protests against him, saying it is not a matter of “individual prestige” for him.
The ex-minister said he was disturbed to see the series of events that have unfolded in the last 10 days and sent his resignation to the prime minister.
Pradhan’s resignation comes amid Cockroach Janta Party-led protests at the Jantar Mantar, demanding his accountability over the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak and irregularities in the CBSE’s on-screen marking process. PTI NAV COR VN VN
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