![\"\"](\"https:\/\/images.bhaskarassets.com\/web2images\/1884\/2026\/08\/09\/cover_1786220803252.jpg\")
<\/picture><\/div>\nThe country’s former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday that there was an attempt to mislead Gen Z during the NEET paper leak protest demonstrations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Addressing students and teachers at GM University in Bhubaneswar, Pradhan spoke openly for the first time about his resignation. He said that he had met PM Modi and offered to resign from the Union Council of Ministers.<\/p>\n He said, “At least 2 crore children are born in India every year. 20 crore children have been born in the last 10 years. They have aspirations and they will make India a ‘Vishwa Guru’. The ministerial position was not important to me.<\/p>\n Pradhan had resigned from the post of Education Minister on July 25, 35 days after the protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Key Points of the Chief’s Statement<\/strong><\/span> Targeted Naveen Patnaik-<\/strong> The Chief targeted Odisha’s former Chief Minister and BJD President Naveen Patnaik. He said that he is not bothered by the protests of BJD workers and their sloganeering.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cI am a farmer’s son. Even if you ask me to go back, I will come back again.\u201d<\/p>\n He said, “I have never let the heads of 4.5 crore people of Odisha bow down in shame. As long as I am alive, I will not break the trust placed in me and will not do anything that hurts the pride and self-respect of Odisha.”<\/p>\n Became minister with Lord Jagannath’s blessings- <\/strong>Pradhan said that he became a central minister 12 years ago with the blessings of Lord Jagannath and Sambalpur’s revered deity Maa Samaleswari.<\/p>\n Resignation after PM’s approval- <\/strong>Pradhan said, “I met the Prime Minister and sought his approval to accept the demands of the protesters. The Prime Minister agreed and later also spoke with the youth. Then I resigned.”<\/p>\n Attempt made to mislead the new generation – <\/strong>The Principal said, \u201cRecent events show that some people tried to mislead Gen Z. Who is Gen Z? I believe they are our own. This was never a question of personal prestige for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Dharmendra, who once took to the streets against paper leaks, resigns on the same issue<\/strong><\/p>\n Dharmendra Pradhan also participated in a paper leak protest in 1997. He was badly beaten. There were injuries on his face as well. -Photo Credit:TNIE<\/span><\/p>\n 29 years ago, Dharmendra Pradhan had also protested on the paper leak issue. Prashant Raut, who was an associate of Pradhan, told The Indian Express that in 1997, when a paper leak occurred in Odisha, Pradhan had protested. Around 1,500 students participated in it. The police lathi-charged the protesters. Dharmendra Pradhan was badly beaten. He sustained injuries at several places on his body and also suffered a fracture.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The country’s former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday that there was an attempt to mislead Gen Z during the NEET paper leak protest demonstrations. Addressing students and teachers at GM University in Bhubaneswar, Pradhan spoke openly for the first time about his resignation. He said that he had met PM Modi and offered…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26339,21002,21820,22250,20988,21952,102,26340],"class_list":["post-31614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-bhubaneswar-news","tag-dharmendra-pradhan","tag-education-ministry","tag-gen-z","tag-neet-paper-leak","tag-neet-protest","tag-pm-modi","tag-union-council-of-ministers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dharmendra](\"https:\/\/images.bhaskarassets.com\/web2images\/521\/2026\/08\/09\/image__2_1784971118359_1786224317338.png\")
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