{"id":710383,"date":"2026-07-25T11:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710383\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:12:10","slug":"dharmendra-pradhan-india-education-minister-resigns-after-cockroach-janta-party-cjp-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710383\/","title":{"rendered":"Dharmendra Pradhan: India education minister resigns after Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dharmendra Pradhan: The minister brought down by a paper leakpublished at 11:38 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:38 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Dharmendra Pradhan\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/8b16a3a4-1ace-4404-81b2-9f584da8d332.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"774\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dharmendra Pradhan&#8217;s<br \/>\npolitical story comes with a striking irony: he launched his career protesting against a question paper leak, then resigned on Saturday as education minister decades<br \/>\nlater over another.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Born into a political family<br \/>\nin the eastern state of Odisha, 57-year-old Pradhan emerged through the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad<br \/>\n(ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, the umbrella organisation of Hindu nationalist parties. He reportedly led<br \/>\nstudent protests and suffered injuries in a police baton charge during an anti-paper<br \/>\nleak demonstration in 1997.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Although he finished third in<br \/>\nthe local university students&#8217; union election, he rose steadily through the<br \/>\nBJP, serving as ABVP national general secretary, BJP youth chief and later as one<br \/>\nof the party&#8217;s key election strategists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A close ally of PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister JP Nadda, he is widely credited with expanding the BJP&#8217;s<br \/>\norganisation in Odisha.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Appointed junior petroleum<br \/>\nminister when Modi came to power in 2014, Pradhan served in the upper house<br \/>\nfrom Bihar before returning to Odisha to win a lower house seat in 2024. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dharmendra Pradhan: The minister brought down by a paper leakpublished at 11:38 BST 11:38 BST Image source, Getty&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-710383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}