photo courtesy : The Times of India
NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday took a swipe at the government over the resignation of former Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, saying it had “saved the Pradhan Mantri (Prime Minister) by removing a Pradhan”.
Participating in the 10-hour discussion on the anti-paper leak bill, Akhilesh Yadav linked Pradhan’s resignation to the nationwide student protests over the NEET paper leak controversy and claimed the government was forced to bow before public pressure.
“When the minister (Dharmendra Pradhan) arrived in Parliament, he was welcomed outside the House. Imagine the immense relief the members must have felt and the major crisis from which they were saved. By removing one ‘Pradhan’, you effectively saved the ‘Pradhan Mantri’,” the Kannauj MP said.
He credited the youth-led agitation for forcing the government to act.
“When the government gets panicked and scared, it accepts demands. We saw this during the farmers’ protest as well. The government withdrew the three farm laws when elections approached,” he said.
Referring to the protests, he added that what initially appeared to be a joke eventually turned into a movement significant enough to compel the government to respond. “I hope all the demands raised by the youths are accepted. The government must have realised that even a party that begins as a joke can become a major force,” he said.
The SP chief also accused the BJP of damaging India’s education system.
“Ever since the BJP came to power, it has tried to destroy education, examinations and universities by painting them in one colour. This created anger among students, which is why the protests became so massive that the world’s biggest party had to budge. The approach should change,” he said.
He further alleged that the government had “snatched the rights of Dalits and backward classes in recruitments” and quipped that the Opposition feared the Centre would eventually “outsource the entire government”, just as it had outsourced examinations to the National Testing Agency (NTA).
