Bhubaneswar: A day after Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from the Union Cabinet over the NEET paper leak, Opposition parties in Odisha Sunday demanded the removal of state minister Nityananda Gond for alleged errors in the school textbooks for classes 1 to 8.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das threatened to call a statewide bandh if Gond does not resign for the grave mistakes in the school textbooks.
We know that Pradhan was forced to resign. Odisha’s School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond should resign, taking responsibility for the textbook errors. Our party has given an ultimatum to the Mohan Charan Majhi government in Odisha either to take the resignation of Gond or sack him, Das said.
He said Congress activists would gherao Gond’s residence if the minister does not resign.
If Pradhan could resign on the ground of what he called moral values, why not Gond If political accountability could be enforced at the national level, the same yardstick should also be applied in Odisha, the state Congress chief said.
BJD MLA Pradeep Disari asked the chief minister to ensure that Gond resigns as his department has hampered the study of students by providing wrong information.
BJD’s youth and students’ wings held save education rallies in at least 16 districts, demanding Gond’s removal from the post.
BJD students’ wing president Ipsita Sahoo said, The minister should accept moral responsibility for the lapses instead of shifting the blame to officials.
Addressing a press conference, BJP leader Biranchi Narayan Tripathy alleged that the Congress and the BJD should stop using the word morality as they lacked it.
During the Congress government, its leaders had shown no morality. When the BJD was in power, how many ministers tendered resignation on moral values even though there were corruption charges against several of them, he said.
The chief minister has handed over the investigation into the alleged textbook errors to the Crime Branch of Odisha Police.
One former director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training has been arrested, three assistant directors have been suspended, and a disciplinary proceeding was underway against six other officers.
The chief minister said that strict action would be taken against the culprits for causing errors in textbooks for school students.
