From NEP face to resignation as Education Minister, Pradhan’s rise and fall

New Delhi: From becoming BJP's go-to election manager for difficult states and handling key ministries in three tenures of the Modi government to resigning as Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan's political career faced an unexpected jolt after flaring nationwide protests over the NEET paper leak. As Education Minister, Pradhan became the public face of the implementation of the ambitious National Education Policy (NEP). However, his final years in office were overshadowed by repeated controversies surrounding competitive examinations and allegations of saffronisation of school textbooks. Pradhan stepped down from his post on Saturday, 35 days after protests spearheaded by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) broke out to press for his resignation over irregularities in the exam system and the NEET paper leak. The resignation marked a significant departure from the government's initial dismissive response to the agitation. Pradhan himself had escalated the confrontation in June by describing the CJP as the "dehshatgardon ka B-team", accusing it of acting on behalf of forces rejected by the people. He is the second union minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tenures to resign following a public controversy. The first was M J Akbar, who stepped down as minister of state for external affairs in 2018 after sexual harassment allegations surfaced against him during the #MeToo movement. Pradhan is also the second Union Education Minister in the country to have resigned following a controversy. In 1967, MC Chagla had resigned from Indira Gandhi's cabinet over differences with the government on policy and political issues. From starting as an ABVP activist in 1983, to being a three-time Cabinet minister two decades later, Pradhan has donned multiple hats in his political career. In recent years, 57-year-old Pradhan, who is the son of former Union Minister Debendra Pradhan, has also been favoured by the BJP when it comes to deployment of election in-charges, be it Bihar or Haryana. He was also assigned the elections in Uttarakhand in 2017 and Uttar Pradesh in 2022. His long-term project was his home state Odisha, where the BJP formed the government on its own for the first time in 2024. He was the person who was given a single assignment in the 2021 battle for West Bengal -- handle Nandigram, the constituency from where the then chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost despite her party's sweeping victory across the state. Pradhan made his electoral debut in 2000, contesting from Odisha's Pallalhara. In 2004, he ran for Lok Sabha from Deogarh, a seat previously held by his father, Debendra Pradhan. He lost the 2009 general elections and chose to remain out of direct electoral battles. But his skills and organisational prowess led him to be appointed as BJP general secretary in 2010, and in 2012, he secured a Rajya Sabha seat from Bihar. When Narendra Modi swept to power in the 2014 general election, Pradhan was made the Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas with independent charge. Popularly known as the "Ujjwala man" after the scheme which provided free LPG connections to poor households, Pradhan is credited with being the longest-serving Union minister for petroleum and natural gas. In a cabinet reshuffle in 2017, he was elevated to the cabinet rank for the same ministry, with an additional charge of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. He was again made a cabinet minister in the second Modi government and given the Oil Ministry. In 2021, Pradhan was made the union minister for education and skill development and entrepreneurship. He was tasked with the implementation of the ambitious new National Education Policy (NEP) in his tenure as the education and skill development minister. Pradhan returned to the Lok Sabha after 15 years in 2024, after he won from Sambalpur in Odisha, defeating the Biju Janata Dal’s Pranab Prakash Das by a substantial margin of over 1.19 lakh votes. He retained the education portfolio in Modi 3.0 in 2024 where his tenure began on a rocky note amid controversy over alleged paper leaks. Pradhan, a prominent face of the BJP in Odisha, was also considered to be in the race for the state’s first BJP chief minister after the party secured 78 seats in the assembly polls, defeating the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD. Hailing from Talcher in Odisha, Pradhan holds a post-graduate degree in Anthropology from Utkal University in Bhubaneswar.