Why PM Modi isn’t asking Dharmendra Pradhan to resign | Let Me Explain 150 | Pooja Prasanna
Do you know what connects Lal Bahadur Shastri, TT Krishnamachari, Natwar Singh, A Raja,
Dayanidhi Maran, BS Yediyurappa, Ashok Chavan and Nitish Kumar?
They belonged to different political parties.
But they all did one thing that has almost disappeared from Indian politics.
They resigned.
Some of these leaders were later acquitted.
Some returned to public office.
But they all resigned because allegations had become too serious, or because a major failure had happened under their watch.
Today, that convention seems to have vanished.
NEET paper leak, UGC- NET paper leak, CBSE evaluation fiasco
The government has been hit by one controversy after the other
But you know who won't resign? This man: Dharmendra pradhan.
The Cockroach Janata Party has been protesting for days
Opposition has protested
Student organisations have protested.
Parents have protested.
Yet Dharmedra pradhan just wont resign
In fact, the BJP has openly articulated its position.
In 2015, when the Opposition demanded Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje resignation over the Lalit Modi controversy, Rajnath Singh had a simple response.
That wasn't just a defence.
It became government policy.
It holds good even today. The BJP does not want to leave a trail of accountability.
Why won’t Pradhan resign? And is he really so important in the ecosystem?
Let Me Explain
Ironically, no political party has demanded resignations more aggressively than the BJP when it sat in Opposition.
During the UPA years, it repeatedly demanded ministers resign over the 2G spectrum case, Commonwealth Games, coal allocations and a host of other controversies.
A resignation isn’t proof of guilt.
It is the minimum standard of political accountability while investigations continue.
Today, that standard appears to have changed.
So why doesn't Dharmendra Pradhan resign?
Part of the answer may lie in his political importance.
Pradhan has been associated with the RSS for years and served as a national convenor of the Bajrang Dal.
He has long been regarded as one of the BJP's most trusted organisational leaders.
A Caravan profile once described him as one of the party's principal fundraisers- the money man.
This week, The News Minute published an investigation into how ONGC donated over ₹650 crore in CSR funds to organisations linked to the RSS ecosystem.
This included Seva Bharati, Ekal Vidyalaya, and Sangh-affiliated hospitals.
And most happened when Pradhan was Petroleum Minister, These donations would have probably happened under another minister too.
But the investigation offers an important glimpse into Pradhan's place within the wider Sangh ecosystem.
You can read that investigation here on www.thenewsminute.com.
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As far as exam leaks go, they aren’t new in India. It has been happening forever.
An analysis by Sumedha Mittal for Newslaundry in July 2024 showed that 89 separate cases of exam paper leaks were documented in media reports between 2014 to 2024.
Twenty one were under the watch of central institutions with the BJP in power at the centre.
41 happened in states where the NDA was in power
The rest of the leaks happened in Congress ruled states, Telangana under TRS, Uttar Pradesh under Samajwadi party etc.
So Pradhan can probably get away by saying that leaks happen under everyone’s watch
So the issue isn't whether leaks happen.
They do.
The real question is what governments do after repeated failures.
But the problem does not stop there
Let's look at what has happened recently.
The NEET controversy.
UGC-NET being cancelled.
The CBSE on-screen evaluation fiasco.
Different exams.
Different agencies.
But remarkably similar failures.
Even more worrying is that some of the contractors involved had already been linked to earlier controversies.
In the CBSE case, TheNewsMinute reported that the Board awarded its on-screen marking contract to Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck in December 2025 and rolled it out within weeks.
In the NEET case, Bihar Police uncovered a cheating racket involving personnel linked to the biometric verification process. Reports suggested that the contractor had outsourced parts of the work to another company that had previously been blacklisted in states like Tamil Nadu.
A single failure can happen.
Repeated failures point to institutional failure.
The problem with Pradhan does not stop with the fact that he runs an inefficient system. He seems to have done nothing to fix the system
And then there is the National Testing Agency itself.
The NTA conducts some of India's most important entrance examinations.
But here's something many people don't know.
The NTA isn't a statutory body created through an Act of Parliament.
It is a registered society set up in 2017.
That matters.
Because as researcher Rahul Verma points out in this piece, there are no clearly defined legal standards that hold the NTA accountable when an examination collapses.
When NEET-UG 2026 was cancelled, the NTA's formal responsibility was limited to carrying forward registrations and refunding the ₹1,700 examination fee.
That's it.
Think about that for a moment.
Lakhs of students spend months, sometimes years, preparing.
Families spend money on coaching.
Some students take a drop year
The emotional and financial cost runs into thousands of crores.
But institutionally, none of that exists.
The system recognises only the examination fee.
This brings us back to accountability.
In 1956, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned as Railway Minister after a devastating train accident in Tamil Nadu killed around 150 people.
He wasn't driving the train.
He wasn't personally responsible for the accident.
But he probably believed responsibility ultimately rested with the minister heading the department.
The same principle has appeared again and again in Indian politics.
Courts determine guilt.
Ministers are expected to accept responsibility.
It also raises a larger question. What message is Prime Minister Narendra Modi sending? Has the BJP created a system where ministers are insulated from responsibility and accountability, no matter how serious the failure?
Produced by Akshay Lal, Script by Dhanya Rajendran, Camera by Ajay R, Edited by Jaseem Ali
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