Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday (June 24, 2026) hit out at Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for his reported “terrorist” remark against protesting students, and asserted that the Minister would have to resign.

The Congress president’s reference was to a comment by Mr. Pradhan, made during a television interview, in which he referred to Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s interactions with students at Rajasthan’s education hub Kota on June 17. He said Mr. Gandhi was trying to “spread terrorism” and referred to the Cockroach Janata Party as “the B team of terrorists”. Mr. Pradhan’s remarks amounted to calling the protesting students “terrorists”, the Congress alleged.

In a post on social media platform X, Mr. Kharge linked the remark to concerns over examination paper leaks and their impact on students. “Ninety paper leaks have occurred, the futures of millions of students have been ruined, 20 children have taken their own lives due to the NEET paper leak, families have been devastated…,” he said.

The Congress president alleged that despite the controversies surrounding examination irregularities, Mr. Pradhan had refused to take responsibility. “The Education Minister of the Modi government, Dharmendra Pradhan, is clinging to his chair, and while giving interviews, he is calling the ‘students’ echo’ as that of ‘terrorists’,” Mr. Kharge said.

He drew a parallel with the Centre’s response to earlier protests. “The country has not forgotten that Prime Minister Modi himself, in Parliament, had insultingly labelled the farmer benefactors ‘andolan-jeevi’ (living off agitations) and ‘parjeevi’ (parasites). Whoever questions this government is called an anti-national,” Mr. Kharge said.

Mr. Kharge said the students’ movement would continue to gain strength and called for Mr. Pradhan’s resignation.

“#ChhatronKiGoonj (Congress’s ’echo of students’ campaign) will echo loudly across the entire country; Modi’s Minister Pradhan will have to resign,” he said.

The party also announced that it would hold press conferences across 28 cities on Thursday (June 25, 2026) under the banner of ‘ChhatronKiGoonj’.

“Through this campaign, the Indian National Congress demands a comprehensive overhaul of India’s education system, beginning with the resignation of Union Education Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, who epitomises the Modi government’s lack of vision and dogmatic approach to education,” Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal said in a statement.

”Over the past 12 years, the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh)-BJP government has only pursued the privatisation, centralisation, and ‘sanghification’ of education, and done too little to prepare India’s youth for the future. The crisis today is not only one of unemployment but also of employability,” Mr. Venugopal said.